Spanish Love Songs and Oso Oso Mine the Sad for the Happy at Chicago's Metro

Yeah, but I still come through when you want/It's like if I serve no use, where will I get my purpose from?/And then it always changes the second we see the sun

Lyrics like that bring to mind a shoegaze-y downtempo number perfect to slot in next to some Death Cab for Cutie and The Shins when you feel the need to get brutally melancholy.

And my bleak mind/Says it's cheaper just to die/The prick inside my head's laud off and daring me to try

Jesus Christ, same here. Pull a dark grey shade across the entire sky and cover yourself in blankets for the weekend. Songs with lyrics like that have to be the most fuzzed-out, overcast, Bullet for My Valentine songs this side of New Order.

Except that they're not. Quite the opposite in fact. Get used to that, because it's going to become a theme here. A theme I'm forcing upon you whether if fits this review or not. Deal with it.

And speaking of, has there ever been a genre of music more opposite of itself than emo music? Upbeat, driving (and often times danceable) pop punk music masking the fact that the subject matter is something usually sad or depressing, running the entire emotional gamut from family problems to being broke to dissatisfaction with the trash fire that is society in general. It's like happy music for sad ass people.

Two current bands carrying the emo torch (and writing the very lyrics you read at the outset of this piece) are Spanish Love Songs and Oso Oso, who continue our theme of opposites being exciting by hailing from Los Angeles, CA and Long Beach, NY. Co-headlining a nationwide tour with Worry Club and Sydney Sprague, this tour of sadness coated in a sweet happy candy shell stopped by Chicago's legendary Metro on Thursday night to deliver contrasting styles all designed to make us happy about being sad.

Anxiety. Nervousness. Existential dread. If you're going to have to face these types of things on an everyday basis, you couldn't ask for a better guide than Sydney Sprague. Combining a saccharine sound that's easy on the ears with a wry sense of humor (her sophomore record was titled somebody in hell loves you), Sprague worked her way through a nine song set, deftly pivoting her sound depending on the feel each song needed. 'object permanence' could get rotation on any Top 40 station right now and sound right at home. 'steve' is one of the better songs of 1996 that just happened to come out almost three decades later. 'smiley face' and 'Isob' fall somewhere in between, reminding me of Haim in the best ways possible.

And then there's the opposite. All the chill vibes that Sydney Sprague effortlessly set up were immediately dashed the second Chicago's own Worry Club hit the stage. From the opening notes of 'sucker punch' and not letting up through the band's eight song set, lead singer/guitarist Chase Walsh was an absolute frenetic ball of energy onstage. While the rest of the band kept up admirably, Walsh was the driving force behind each song, somehow singing, playing guitar, dancing, and pushing the momentum of each beat forward with his entire being simultaneously. I was exhausted just watching him. Considering Walsh records the instrumental parts of Worry Clubs songs all on his own (as well as writing all their lyrics), it's not a surprise that d0-it-all-yourself energy translates to Worry Club live shows. The volume knob on his guitar was covered by two giant pieces of red tape as if to admonish anyone that would dare turn it anywhere below 10, and that's exactly how the energy of their set was as well.

Poppy. Breezy. Light. The same words that can be used to describe Oso Oso's music can also be used to describe and kind of gin-based drink you'd enjoy on your porch during the summer. And when it comes to emo pedigree, they've got it in spades. Sharing both a hometown and certain elements of their sound with fellow Long Beachers (Long Beachians?) Brand New and Taking Back Sunday? Check. Heart on your sleeve lyrics? Check. Long and humorous album and/or song titles? Check (their debut was titled Real Stories of True People Who Kind of Looked Like Monsters).

Brainchild of Jade Lilitri (who recorded the entire Oso Oso debut himself before assembling a band to play live), the band kicked off their set with the single 'gb/ol h/nf / subside' but kept most of the evening split almost equally amongst their last three releases. And while tracks off each album were all spectacular in their own right, the ones off 2018's the yunahon mixtape were the highlight of the evening, almost as if revisiting the older material revitalized their delivery. Finishing off their set with the combo of 'the cool' and 'reindeer games' was an inspired choice, giving the capacity crowd a few last chances to groove out to music that perfectly matched the rapidly-warming temperatures of Chicago spring right outside the venue.

I always have respect for bands that name themselves something that's almost impossible to Google. If you search "Oso Oso", you're coming up with the band in question as well as 10 relevant links to both their music and various interviews they've done over the years on the results page. The opposite (there's that word again) is true for Spanish Love Songs, whose Google results are predictably mixed. While some of their songs might touch on the theme of love, none of them are in Spanish. Also, I don't think any of the members of Spanish Love Songs are Spanish. It's like their name gets less literal for every additional word you get into it.

If Oso Oso is the lighter, poppier side of emo music, Spanish Love Songs are definitely the opposite. I wouldn't necessarily call them 'heavy' so it's not the exact opposite, but man do they have a gigantic sound. Most of that credit goes to lead singer Dylan Slocum who has a unique voice that could make even reading the phone book sound like the most epic thing to ever happen in the history of man. His voice makes Spanish Love Songs sound important and insistent, which is perfect for the emo genre where every feeling is cranked up to 10 and every teenage problem is the end of the world. If you're a fan of the massive sound that The Menzingers pulled off on last year's Some of It Was True, Spanish Love Songs is going to be right up your alley.

Slocum has previously referred to Spanish Love Songs' sound as "grouch rock" and from a lyrical standpoint, he's not wrong. Their first three albums were largely themed around heartbreak (Giant Sings the Blues), dissatisfaction with yourself (Schmaltz), and dissatisfaction with society and the world as a whole (Brave Faces Everyone). It takes a special kind of band to get up in front of audiences in 2024 and shout choruses like "Don't you know you were born to die poor, man?" without bumming everyone out.

But that's exactly the skill that Spanish Love Songs bring to their music. Slocum has the ability to take all the things he's feeling (fear, general anxiety, overarching feeling of dread at all times about nothing specific) and put them into lyrics and melodies that are so relatable that you can't help but sing along. They're problems, but they're the same problems you have. And since they don't have easy answers, might as well join in and commiserate, right?

Slocum's general "hey I think that's a dad I know" look definitely helps when it comes to relating with him and his songs. Very much looking like someone who is in his mid-thirties (which he is), this isn't some young, twenty year old telling me about how hard their world is. Not that young folks can't have their struggles, but when the message is coming from someone who is of the appropriate age for the world to have beaten them down just a bit it makes the message feel all the more authentic.

Weaving their way through songs off Schmaltz, Brave Faces Everyone, and their most recent release No Joy, Spanish Love Songs had the capacity Metro crowd enthralled from the night's opening song ('Lifers') through a fourteen song set that fittingly climaxed with 'Brave Faces, Everyone'. After all, it's not very effective to spend an hour singing about all the various things that bum us all out without giving some small advice on how to endure. Now, it may not be the greatest advice in the world, but as far as strategies for dealing with the world in 2024 go, the last words to ring out on the evening are about as good and realistic as we can hope for these days:

We don't have to fix everything at once.
We were never broken
Life's just very long

Brave faces, everyone.

Spanish Love Songs and Oso Oso continue their nationwide tour through 5/9. Dates and tickets can be found here.

Spanish Love Songs Setlist - The Metro, Chicago 4.18.24

Lifers
Losers
Routine Pain
Self-Destruction (As a Sensible Career Choice)
Pendulum
Kick
Beer & NyQuil (Hold It Together)
Buffalo Buffalo
Losers 2
Marvel
Haunted
Re-Emerging Signs of the Apocalypse
Clean-Up Crew
Brave Faces, Everyone