The Tropical Incineration, Pedro InfameTropic-All, Mexico/Venezuela
Rating: 48
By Carlos Reyes
My friend Derek Evers (founder of Impose Magazine) would always say that prior to approaching an album we all should take music reviews slightly, and instead focus on the real signal of quality: its album cover. As a visual buff myself, I’ve seen this correlation move forward with plenty of success. But as any High-School hypothesis research paper would show, there are always exceptions. The second release by Venezuelan-born by-way of Mexico adept party-starter Pedro Infame features what’s arguably my favorite album cover of the year thus far (designed by Oscar Reyes), the music inside is unfortunately, not as accomplished. The shrewdly titled The Tropical Incineration suggests two things: the literal definition of an ON-FIRE social gathering, and the burning down of the DJ tropical commodity. It's neither.
With bold descriptive titles such as “I really fucking like big butts” or “Hands up for Mary” (his funky adaptation to Baby J’s underground anthem “Alza la mano si te gusta la marihuana”), one would assume to encounter a fearless record of Molotov-aptitudes, instead we get a middling collection of songs that don’t go very far from the desktop. Leaving expectations aside, we do get to see Pedro Infame’s qualities going a bit evil axing some brutal hard-rock into the party mix. In “Suck my hard” he embeds guitar riffs so aggressively, you can almost confuse them with dubstep. But even under this type of genre trialing, Infame only goes as far as where Lil Wayne took his Rebirth, and where Mel Gibson took his Apocalypto. This is an album preoccupied with a purpose that triumphs on its aesthetics and overall premise, but falls short on its artistry. The Aguascalientes-based producer is a first-class captain of the dancefloor, he's just needs to translate those skills into a functional, listenable album.