NYC-based band Zemog El Gallo Bueno enthrall across their seventh album, ¡Ya Tú Sabes! U All Reddy Noe., showcasing a vibrant blend of Latin X-perimental sounds that traverse Salsa, Merensongo, Brazilian Funk, and art-folk textures. Although the project originated from a trove of older collaged tunes, Abraham Gomez-Delgado transformed these sparks into fully arranged new compositions — fresh charts that the band learned and performed as complete, intentional works. Across the record, Gomez-Delgado and his talented ensemble intertwine virtuosic musicianship with deeply personal and political storytelling, exploring themes of migration, indigenous ancestry, identity, and the notion of home as a spiritual and creative refuge.
For the album, Gomez-Delgado took a “composing backwards” approach, giving the band only skeletal sketches like a key or rhythm and letting them improvise freely. The sessions were then cut, collaged, and reshaped, preserving the energy of first contact. As he explains: “The raw interactions of the live band and the vocabulary it had developed over time were there from the start.”
“Cambiando Sol” commences the album as an excellent display of the project’s dynamic strengths — impressing across both bursts of ardor and more understated, debonair intrigue. The expressive elements are immediate, as a brass-forward array of instrumentation proves vibrantly inviting — and a cohesive complement to the emergence of smoothly impactful vocals. The mid-point is especially catching in its colorful brass tones, then arriving into beautifully clanging guitar work. Across both upfront fervency and more subdued enjoyments, like the twangy guitar send-off, “Cambiando Sol” is a powerful opener and a strong statement of impeccable musicianship.
Further evident of the act’s eclectic prowess is “Caso Por Casa,” the album’s first single. Particularly impressive is its abundance of structural turns, flawlessly shifting from Salsa to Merensongo and Brazilian Funk. Aptly, the production excels in its rhythmic work especially, exuding a frolicking playfulness into the “Chachapoya” vocal solemnity. English lyricism follows — “the word for home / more felt than seen” — and continues to convey a very personal thematic hold. The displacement of peoples is emphasized with artful, heartfelt qualities — drawing from broader epidemics, like the crisis in homeless and immigrant communities, in addition to Gomez-Delgado’s personal experiences and background: drawing from his migration from Puerto Rico to the U.S., and also his father’s roots in Saposoa, Peru. “Taíno (Por Siento)” is another personal delight, embracing a Plena style within expressions of ancestral roots, inherited wounds, misused traditions, and the layered identity of Puerto Rican heritage.
Tracks like “Caso Por Casa” show Zemog El Gallo Bueno’s intent to share thematic positivity and hope, particularly emphasizing the underprivileged and inhumane policies that seem to skirt human rights. “Mania” continues this introspection, focusing largely on accomplices to these policies — who in many cases feign niceties in person but operate with malice behind the curtain. Set within an impassioned vocal delivery that resembles a stream-of-conscious intensity akin to black midi, the visceral lyrics convey a tension between surface-level warmth and corrosive forces, moving from the disappearing plea of “ay, it hurts” to the raw indictment in “they snatch, they change, they violate you.” The album stirs across a variety of tones — from the art-folk mystique of “Trampoline” to the multi-stylistic flair within “Caso Por Casa” — and also in its impactful, poignant lyrical commentary on personal identity, political oppression, and the role of art/music as a “spiritual guide” of sorts.
As Gomez-Delgado explains: “Home, for me, is a room full of people making music. I’m not saying music alone solves everything. But it has always been a kind of spiritual guide—a home. Being with my family and friends, playing music that carries our history—that feels like home.”
