It’s been a while since we last heard about the prodigal children of Bayamon, Puerto Rico, Las Ardillas. Early this year they performed at the closing showcase of the fourth edition of Festival Nrmal in Monterrey, at SXSW, and afterward embarked on a U.S. tour alongside their fellow Puerto Ricans, The Vigilantes. In the midst of all these events, they released “Linda Niña," a surfy, vintage-flecked garage single with catchy hooks all over.
With their newest single “¿Donde están?” the band looks to attack all their detractors that once believed they were going to climb their way up over the the band but have vanished like dust along the way. The video features the band performing at the San Juan bar El Local En Santurce, where Gianki yells the new, soon-to-be Puerto Rican hymn “¿Crees que tu algún día nos puedas parar? No lo lograrás, estamos aquí no queremos cambiar.” “¿Donde están?" can easily become a classic garage/punk stomper, replete with Eskorbutian attitude-soaked lyrics like "Hasta en el infierno nos podrán escuchar.” If this is the first taste we have of their second full-length, Canciones de Amor, Locura y Muerte, happening later this year, I can comfortably affirm that the Boricua heroes manage to not only display better songwriting and musicianship than most punk bands of the era, but also to out-do them in the performance category with their wild, dangerous, and violent style, which are all represented well in this song.