As the seas of modern Oi! music are diluted into an unrecognizably sad swamp of vapid, overproduced, pop punk nonsense, it is glaringly obvious when the good stuff appears — in context, as well as sound — and for my money (literally), Chicago's FUERZA BRUTA is the top of the heap. Their 12" from last year, "Verdugo," was the best record of 2017 for many people, myself included — made apparent by the initial press as well as two subsequent represses fully selling out in just one year. F.B.'s brand of hard-as-stone Spanish language skinhead anthems — of, by, and for undesirables, immigrants, skins & punks — is anchored firmly by hard, muscular riffs, and choral chants, with chiming guitar leads at every turn.
Three of the four tracks on "Somos el Mal" were released earlier in 2018 by Foreign Legion as a limited-to-50 lathe cut, but the fourth track, a side-long opus, "Feos Por Naturaleza," is new to this EP.
