‘Al pasar los días, la ciudad despierta, Y se encuentra un cuerpo que tan solo apesta, Al “Azul Pastel” le dan una medalla, Y en la nota roja solo se comenta’ (Azul Pastel) / ‘As the days pass, the city wakes up, And a body is found that only stinks, “Pastel Blue” is given a medal, And the crime news only comments’ (Pastel Blue)

Welcome to a city of ghosts.  A city stalked by the spectres of lost futures.  A city steeped in a languid sense of decay, one fermented by entrenched corruption, punctured by eruptions of police violence.  A city that isolates and intimidates.  Yet the desire to break free from suffocating traditions and build something different is tangible, its beat growing stronger everyday.  Welcome to 1980s’ Mexico City.

Las Ánimas Del Cuarto Obscuro (The Souls Of The Dark Room) were short-lived, self-releasing just this their 1988 debut album, before morphing into Las Animas, the solo project of vocalist Antonio Sánchez Uribe.  The core of the band’s sound is rooted in the melancholic essentials of contemporary post-punk yet imbued with elements that root it very much in its era, from the quirkily skittering keys to the gleaming sheen of the solos.

There is also a definite sense of experimentation, of a band grappling with how best to forge their competing influences into a coherent sound, unencumbered by any sense of convention.  This leads to some intriguing contrasts from the infectiously surging Puebla Fantasma (Ghost Town), the sombrely serpentine Aperecida (Appeared), and the gothic-tinged Azul Pastel (Pastel Blue) to the off-kilter fragility of Samarkanda (Samarkand) and La Mosca (The Fly), before the languorously expansive closer, Hasta Luego (See You Later).

Breathing new life into this lost classic of Mexican post-punk has been something of a labour of love for La Vida Es Un Mus.  And we are now rewarded for this patience and persistence with what is a thoroughly beguiling, deeply atmospheric album.