Singer-songwriters who make rock or rockers who compose (great) songs. What came first, the chicken or the egg? It matters little to elucidate it when you have in front of you the British Ben Howard or the Valencians Santero y los Muchachos, musicians whose personality ends up liquefying any style or label that boasts. A proposal with a lot of aftertaste and an optimum degree of maceration.
The British Ben Howard wanted to be a journalist in his youth, but discarded the idea and decided to opt completely for music. Better for him (financially, of course) and also for the world, because if he lost a chronicler of current affairs, he gained a fine and sensitive pop composer, who honors the records that his parents played at home when he was a child: Van Morrison, John Martyn, Joni Mitchell or Simon & Garfunkel. His career, which took off early because in 2013 he was awarded two Brit Awards as a debutant, has five albums, of which the fifth and last, "Is It?" (2023), is surely the most complete and experimental, introducing electronic arrangements reminiscent of the best Talk Talk or Peter Gabriel.
The Valencian band Santero y Los Muchachos radiates a lot of pedigree. Several of its members were part of La Pulquería, a band with one of the most explosive live performances of the last decades in Spain, and two of them - brothers Miguel Ángel and Josemán Escrivá - are sons of José Escrivá, former bass player of Los Top-Son, one of our emblematic bands of the sixties. Any follower of Creedence Clearwater Revival, Quique Gonzalez, M-Clan or Los Zigarros will sympathize with their proposal, which is contained in the albums "Ventura" (2017), "Rioflorido" (2019) and "Royal Cantina" (2022).
