There's a lot that feels beguiling about Dënver's music (and the band itself). Their last release, the charmingly-crafted Profundidad de Campo is structured in a very narrative sense and the quirky Música, Gramática, Gimnasia, took on adolescence with all the sincerity of adolescents. Mariana Montenegro and Milton Mahan illustrated their poppy intellect with songs that sounded more and more melancholic every time one heard them. Among the greatness that surrounds Chile's music scene, what made Dënver's first two albums so compelling was its infectious nature and their big up beat emotions. In "Los Vampiros," their first single off the upcoming Sangre Cita, Mahan’s openness also gets the better of his often spot-on taste for musical eclecticism.
"Los Vampiros" opens with blasts of Europop synths that demand to be enjoyed rather than endure. The track counts with the vocal collaborations of Fanny Leona (Playa Gótica), (me llamo) Sebastián and Pablo Muñoz, the other half of Mahan's side project De Janeiros. The lyrics refer to more extreme hedonism and exemplifies, just like a B movie, the night as territory of fantastic creatures, vampires and werewolves in a struggle for pleasure where the battlefield is the disco track.
The community Mahan and Montenegro seem to imagine here is not exactly the twee community of romantic shut-ins that once defined the group’s fanbase. It’s a different version of that group, not necessarily older, but certainly wiser in their recognition of the need to engage the world in order to preserve their dreaming within it. You might not love disco or Europop, but you can still feel that honest, gentle hope that only Dënver knows how to transmit.