Hometown: Vallejo, Calif.
Pairs well with: Your journey to the other side
With an opening closeup shot of skulls and a droning guitar riff eventually accompanied by teasing snare, Mother Muerte carefully and eerily sets the tone for the mystical journey the band is about to take you on. A slow widening shot opens up the frame as, finally, the masked faces of our guides are revealed, and we see the skulls occupying what looks like a tiny-desk-as-ofrenda setup.
"Al Mas Allá" ("To The Beyond") is Chelsea Rose Sanaloa and Jose R Cadena's psychedelic invocation of the "sombra en el cielo" ("shadow in the sky") that takes us to the afterlife. It's a slow build, backed by the entrancing guitar riff throughout the song, until Sanaloa goes full-on Grace Slick at the end of "White Rabbit" in her final wailing, her biggest offering to the forces on the other side.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.