Divino Niño • The Shady Sexyfornia Tapes
We've covered their singles, we've covered their shows, and now, for the first time, TheseDays gets to cover a full-length by Chicago band Divino Niño. For the non-Spanish speakers reading this, the band's name translates to the "Divine Child", which culturally and religiously acts as a title for Baby Jesus. This comes in handy, I suppose, upon realizing that their full-length (their first since 2014's Pool Jealousy), is a hodgepodge of Spanglish garage rock and stripped down glam pop muddled in fog and dripping with sweat.
“Uruguay” echoes “Te amo” with a mellow acoustic melody, sounding like something you might hear on a South American beach. “Haunted Moon” is on that same wavelength, sending a “drunk to the bone” lullaby in only 90 seconds. “Negro de Amor” (Black Love) stays in Spanish, sounding like an inebriated night at a karaoke bar while “Hold” feels like a drive-in movie from a few decades in the past. The whole album has this vintage style, both exotic and grounded in these Windy City streets. I can't make any comparisons to their sound with anything else coming out of Chicago. The best I can say is that they sound like David Bowie smoking pot with Manu Chao outside of a bar in Pilsen.
The rock scene in Chicago is blooming and blossoming into something truly spectacular (see Whitney, see Twin Peak, see The Orwells, see The Walters, see Santah) and Divino Niño are doing their best to enhance that bubbling movement. Stream all sixteen songs on their Bandcamp or download the album for a measly $6.