After two years of torture, Hinds scream away their demons with new single ‘Superstar’. Check out our latest Dork Mixtape cover feature.
Words: Ciaran Picker.
Photos: Dario Vazquez.
Band members leaving, recording contracts ending, and professional disputes with management are all just parts of life in the music industry. Where they might usually happen over the course of 10, maybe 20 years, Madrid’s guitar-rock favourites Hinds experienced it within two years. Oh, and there was a pandemic on, just to top it off.
Like the proverbial phoenix, Ana Perrote and Carlotta Cosials have risen from the ashes in magnificent style, returning with their fourth album ‘Viva Hinds!’, out 6th September via Lucky Number Records.
It’s a record that shapeshifts through a plethora of sub-genres, with their brand-new single ‘Superstar’ seeing the pair dive headfirst into punk-rock, creating a record full of fire, designed to ignite sparks and get you on your feet.
It’s the latest in a string of singles that emphasise not only Ana and Carlotta’s undoubted musical talent but also their ability to switch up their writing style and really play with the way that our subconscious works.
“I was really playing with the idea of being stuck in a thought,” Carlotta remembers, “which is why we repeat the same words in a different order each time. It’s trying to get from Point A to Point B, but not being able to get over the one thing that’s keeping you in a rut.”
Drawing on the inspiration of a local hero, drunk on their narcissistic tendencies and self-belief, ‘Superstar’ is a darker point of the record. Embodying the pain of being abandoned by someone you would give the world to, the track slowly and quietly builds into an explosive, searing chorus.
Probably unsurprisingly, it acted as an exorcism of some demons for Hinds as they worked back to being the band that was so renowned for their fun, playful energy. In exploring these broken bridges and severed ties, it brought the pair closer together.
“It’s all about someone choosing their own ego and their own pride over you”
Carlotta Cosials
“It was so simple to write, because it was just two friends staring at the ceiling repeating this mantra and trying to get through the pain,” Carlotta candidly states. She continues: “It’s all about someone choosing their own ego and their own pride over you. It’s that disappointment you feel when a friend chooses themselves instead of choosing love, and that really hurts.”
Nonetheless, the pair were able to still find humour in the heartache, with their unbreakable bond allowing them to openly admit their flaws and mistakes, creating tracks that are inescapably and unapologetically human. This soulful approach threads the album together, making it arguably the most relatable Hinds record to date.
To look at ‘Viva Hinds!’ in closer detail is to find a band totally in love with what they do, acknowledging that all the hard times are what ultimately brought them to this moment of sheer joy and musical freedom.
Opening track ‘Hi, How Are You?’ takes a tongue-in-cheek look at an emotional downward spiral, before ‘Boom Boom Back’ sarcastically deals with attempts at a nightclub rebound romance. In between these tracks, though, there is a heartfelt shoegaze love song in the form of ‘The Bed, The Room, The Rain and You’, while 00s indie-sleaze anthem ‘On My Own’ channels a Libertines-esque view on someone ruining a relationship by being too invested. All of this shows depth and range to not only the duo’s musical influences but also to the quality of the record.
When asked about the order of single releases, Carlotta grins. “We really struggled with what to release as our first single because we loved the whole record; our managers were saying, ‘This is such a good problem to have; you have too many good songs!’”
Ana smiles, “I’ve only just listened back to the album because we’ve been busy on tour and stuff, and honestly, I’m fucking buzzing because it’s just so good.”
“We went back to basics and created a world that was just all about music”
Carlotta Cosials
The album mirrors the environment within which it was built, with recording happening between a secluded house in rural France and a house on the northern French coast. By stripping back production and going back to writing pure guitar music, the band achieved a grounded, human element that was crucial for an album so based around emotion.
“We didn’t fall into the trap of saying, ‘Ok, album four, so we need to turn it up again’,” Carlotta states. “We made our last record in New York City, and you can tell because it’s really crowded and pretentious. This time we made our own studio; we went back to basics and created a world that was just all about music all the time, and we’ve made the best album with what we had.”
It feels as though Hinds have recaptured the spark that made them such an exciting band when their debut album, ‘Leave Me Alone’, came out in 2016. It’s clear that, even after the rollercoaster ride of the last few years, Carlotta and Ana are back to simply having fun and enjoying what they’re doing again.
“Emotionally, it was tough to write the record,” Ana remembers. “We know that Hinds is so special because of our friendship and because we’re girls supporting each other, so it did feel like a lot of pressure at first. Once we got into it, though, the writing was quite easy, and in some ways, it was easier because we didn’t have four opinions, and we weren’t putting people’s feelings above the quality of the song; we haven’t had to compromise anything, and the record is definitely the best version of itself.”
Carlotta wholeheartedly agrees: “Making this record was the best part of that year. I trust Ana 100%, and I know that if she doesn’t like something, she’ll tell you, and she’ll always be right. It was working on the best music in the world with the best people in the world for the best band in the world!”
The chemistry between the pair is unrivaled, feeling like one soul split between two people. This album saw them welcome two more into their quirk family unit, with both Beck (‘Boom Boom Back’) and Fontaines D.C.’s Grian Chatten (‘Stranger’) lending their voices to the project. What may seem like a big deal to the outside world, though, was yet another potentially complicated situation that the duo overcame by going back to basics.
“We stopped waiting for the perfect moment and waiting for the wind to change; any moment can be your moment, you just have to go for it”
Carlotta Cosials
“I love seeing the reaction of other people because we don’t look at it as something that’s a huge deal,” Ana laughs. “We just texted Grian and said, ‘Hey, come sing on this track’, and he just flew over and did it. With Beck, we met him at an event and just went up and asked him. People kept saying to us, ‘That’s not how it’s done’, but I just thought, ‘Why not?’”
This route-one angle permeates across ‘Viva Hinds!’. Carlotta and Ana spoke from the heart, writing emotionally, embracing imperfection, and not overthinking the results. It’s within this realm that the band created their first released songs sung fully in their native Spanish. Far from being a conscious decision, biting break-up track ‘En Forma’ flowed from pen to paper without Carlotta giving it a second thought.
“Writing in Spanish is harder because we have so many syllables; English is more melodic and musical”, Carlotta explains, “but sometimes things from one language don’t translate, and in this song, there are ideas that you guys don’t have words for that perfectly summed up the situation.”
She continues: “Honestly, I was on a plane trying to escape my ex in the middle of a mental breakdown. Existence itself just felt so useless. I don’t know if anyone has tried to translate it, but our Spanish friends were all like, ‘Shit, this is so raw’. If we’d put it into English, it wouldn’t have had the same power.”
These are decisions that a band with less experience might not have made, but Hinds are back to being a band brimming with confidence, made stronger by their recent trials and tribulations. Don’t be fooled into thinking that they are wallowing in self-pity, though, with this album being all about living life with as much heart and humour as it’s possible to muster.
“I don’t think we could have written this album until now,” Carlotta posits, “in the past, we needed to try to be more pop-y, or we needed to experiment and work with loads of producers. Now, I don’t need to prove anything to anyone, I don’t need to get a song on the radio, I’m gonna make music that I want to make, and we’ve made the best music we’ve ever made. We stopped waiting for the perfect moment and waiting for the wind to change; any moment can be your moment, you just have to go for it.”
Avoiding perfection was central for Ana and Carlotta, with their sonic choices mirroring the unfiltered and unadulterated content of the record. “When we were making it, we were pushing back against the really chopped and electronic drum beats,” Ana muses. “It felt like we were making something really niche; we didn’t care about accessibility. I remember saying, ‘Play the bassline even more loose’, or on ‘Stranger’, the drums sound so human that I can basically see the sticks hitting the kit.”
“There was such a thin line between a bad take and the perfect take,” Carlotta adds. “There’s playing a guitar line loose and fluid, and then there’s one where I’m rocking in my chair because I’ve played a riff so badly about 100 times!”
All of the time spent crafting and forging the record may have taken some time, but it’s time that Hinds wouldn’t want to spend doing anything else. They were born for this, so there was never any doubt that their tumultuous start to the 2020s would come good.
Carlotta perfectly sums it up: “When I’m on stage, it’s one of the only moments of my whole life that I feel like I’m exactly where I have to be. I’ll get a text from a friend about a birthday party or an email about a tax return, and it’s like I’m putting up with all of that until I can get back on stage and live the life I’m meant to.”
“I’ve never had a headache on stage,” Ana adds. “I’ll come off stage covered in bruises, but it doesn’t matter because we’re disconnected from the world and just having the best time.”
Hinds are a band living firmly in the present. By disconnecting from the pain and focusing on the simple pleasures, it feels like they are now the best version of themselves. ■
Hinds’ album ‘Viva Hinds!’ is out 6th September. Follow Dork Mixtape on Spotify here.
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