Armada
Tales Of Treason
Pirates Press Records
Rebel music is alive and well in São Paulo, Brazil. Armada is a melodic but hard-hitting punk band, raging against the social inequity and injustice of their home country. Their earlier releases were sung in Portuguese. With Tales of Treason, the band seeks to widen their audience by singing in English. The anthemic songs recall Social Distortion and The Clash in their prime.
The songs may be in English, but the concerns expressed are about Brazil. The opening track concerns the fragile nature of Brazil’s democratic institutions. Henrike Baliú sounds like a young Joe Strummer when he sings about the Bolsonaro years as “a bullet through the heart of a young democracy.” “Wrong Side of America” and “Nation Divided” are clearly statements about current affairs.
It’s not all Sturm und Drang, though. “São Paulo City” is a love song to their home town. Baliú sings “São Paulo City, I’ll never be alone.” For a change of pace, Armada breaks out the acoustic guitars for an original sea shanty about pirates and mermaids. “Battle Drums” sounds a bit like The Pogues. All in all, Tales of Treason is rebellion you can dance to.
