A band that has burst onto the scene with dazzling intensity, Heroína’s name conveys a sense of bravery, perfectly in line with their most visceral intentions and the promises yet to be fulfilled within the voice-guitar-bass-drums line-up. Recorded and mixed by Kellzo and mastered by Carlos Nascimento, this debut album from the Lisbon-based quartet achieves the feat of capturing, in a manner that is both faithful and sublime, the essence of everything they have delivered on stage during their (as yet) brief time together. With a past and, fundamentally, a present that encompasses hardcore, the loudest rock, the deconstruction of the canon and the most sincere songwriting, the four benevolent troublemakers of Heroína evoke these other influences not as a mere summary of them, but as a distinct musical language shaped by instinct, expertise and stubbornness. A belief in the most fundamental and honest foundations of rock as a psychoactive force for finding beauty in the grotesque, transcendence in the screech, and the life that pulsates within that irascible death rattle of the mundane. They are, if we wish to map them out along a sort of historical continuum, the closest thing this country has ever embodied of the deviant spirit of Skin Graft – U.S. Maple, Melt Banana or Arab on Radar – in 11 (as a rule) very brief firecrackers, thrown out unashamedly and with utter abandon in the form of songs intensely lived—or hallucinated—through the sinuous riffs of Martim’s expansive guitar, the elusive pulse of Abras’s bass, the blast beats and swing of Vasco’s drums, and the open-air clamour of Jarda’s voice and prosaic lyrics—the first and last of the town’s noise rock romantics. From the opening minute of untimely fury in ‘Corre’, to the memorable stop-start rhythm of ‘Escarro’, through the stumbling wind instruments of ‘Lavanda’, the staggering rhythm of ‘Heroína’, the electrified vertigo over the abyss of ‘Vigilante’, right up to the final headbanging with ‘Amigo Padre’, ‘Heroína’ seeks to find its footing in the present day, like someone setting fire to the stoic foundations of the past, to throw themselves with faith into the void that remains, towards another life.

Iguanas is the duo of Leonardo Bindilatti and Lourenço Crespo – lifelong friends and co-founders of Cafetra Records. Having grown up together amongst bands, rehearsal rooms and bedrooms converted into makeshift studios, they decided in 2010 to move away from the traditional rock format and experiment with other ways of making music.
In Olaias, Lisbon, they set up a small home studio where everything happened quickly: beats on the computer, keyboards, vocals and guitars recorded on an old four-track Fostex. It was in that room that, in 2013, Iguanas took shape.

Prado stems from a collective desire to give voice to the anger fuelled by current events and the wounds of the past. Through restless guitars, thundering rhythms and raw vocals, they share their experiences, traumas and hopes. Between aggressive outbursts and introspective, cathartic passages, the quintet seeks to create a space where people can speak openly about systems of oppression and violence.