Published
Caries Records, Carlangas’s label, is still a byword for original bands. After Julia de Arco and Dear Joanne, along come Construimos Escaleras, and their self-titled debut has been a very pleasant surprise.
The band from Málaga, made up of 5 friends, landed in June 2026. And they do it by throwing out the handbook of melancholy indie guitars we have spent a decade wearing thin. There is no lament here. There is tension. There is groove.
The quintet is Nilsson on vocals, guitar and synthesiser, and the main songwriter; Samu on bass; Fausto on alto sax, guitar and synthesiser; Paul on tenor sax and synthesiser; and Iván on samples, drum machine and percussion. A rhythm section built like an engine and a double horn line that gives them that touch of elegant abandon.
The album came together after three advance singles: “Fuerte”, “Cortinahogar” and “Basta”. The second takes its name from “Cortinahogar Valdivia”, the shop in the band’s neighbourhood. As someone from Valdivia myself, the sign and its groove double-clicked with me from the first listen and took me straight to the dance floor.
Musically, the album draws on the post-punk of Gang of Four and Talking Heads, on funk rhythms, on the easy swagger of New Yorkers Geese and on that decadent theatricality Viagra Boys made fashionable. But they are 100% from Málaga.
Nilsson sings like someone arguing and reciting in the same sentence. There are moments when his timbre inevitably recalls Abraham Boba of León Benavente. Not always. Yet where Boba intellectualises, Nilsson spits out orders: “Come y abusa”, “Abre los ojos o te comen”. He does not describe. He acts.
The result is 8 tracks made without overthinking. From the contained tension of “Basta”, an assertive shout, to the danceable rhythm of “Fuerte” or the rowdy streak of “Cortinahogar”. It sounds raw, direct, with the saxes up front and the rhythm section nailed down.
Construimos Escaleras do not offer nostalgia. They offer movement. They come to remind us that post-punk makes us sweat and laugh at ourselves. In a scene saturated with weepy guitars, they have decided to make us dance. And they certainly pull it off.
For fans of: Gang of Four, Geese, Novedades Carminha, Pony Bravo
78/100