Flavio (Album 2025)
Mengers
Avant-Noise Rock
Straight out of “La Magdalena Contreras”, Mexico City, Mengers shove in our faces their third album Flavio (October 18th) after the praised i/O. It is common to be skeptical about the following album after an already great one. But Mengers didn’t stutter on stepping up their game.
Parting from the status of the “noisiest band of Mexico” and their art-punk power trio label, Mengers clearly took a step aside, revised their influences and motivations, and brought us a refreshing and more complex spectrum of what they can do.
Flavio is like following a rough curve of sound along time and position Mengers in the next logical (?) point of evolution, we can start the plot at the 70s joining Suicide and Can, the synth-punk meets the krautrock, evolve with a spike of 80s neo-psychodelia of Primal Scream, and meet the 90s electronic/dance post-punk of 6FS, only to follow that revival on the early 2000’s of Liars, and if I haven’t lost you by this point, here it comes what Mengers bring to the world with Flavio. An eclectic album that compresses a variety of sounds and styles and their personal noisy spirit and turns it into what I would like to name as Avant-noise rock for their quality to innovate and experiment with different styles together with their fuzziness core.
A clearer idea of what I mean by Avant-noise rock could come during and after listening to Azotacalles, or the homonymous song Flavio, followed by INC., they mix all those elements in the aforementioned “rough curve of sound”. Innovative, experimental, and brain melting, progressive in the sense of being a step forward, defiant as opposition to the rise of clean look and sounds of the current times.
That being said, I invite you to listen to the full album, one song after the other, with no skips, and pinpoint the variety of styles that Mengers draw for us.
Last time we saw them live was during the summer of 2024 at Kramladen (check out the review here). And we cannot wait for another European Tour to listen to Flavio. We are very much looking forward to another Vienna show.