Release Date: 28 August 2025
Song Count: 9
Rating: 6.5/10
Description:
Hailing from the opposite end of the world is El Significado de Las Flores, an indie rock band so niche that one will be hard-pressed to find any information about them out there, let alone in English. Thankfully, my high-school Spanish was sufficient to decipher what this Valparaíso-based band is all about: a band making alternative music and representing their home in the music scene. Tempus Fugit is their most recent attempt at a breakthrough in the sonical arts, aiming to be an intimate and heartfelt piece that speaks from the soul. Though how far do they succeed?
The album, in terms of composition, is a pretty standard lineup of instruments and playstyles for an approachable indie-rock sound backing a set of quiet and tender vocals that themselves slip into the background most of the time. The ambience is generally meant to be self-reflective and melancholy, yet often doesn't push the envelope any further than what is the least needed to provide such an effect - it expresses and indulges in its own sense of emotion, but doesn't manage to envoke it outwards towards the reader. Most of the more "touching" elements to make the songs sound sadder are layered within the fully Spanish lyrics, and while the language in itself isn't an issue in the slightest due to the band's target audience, the lyricism not only is the primary carrier of the emotional weight within the tracks, but also rarely strays away from the same themes following into every song - ones of missing a lover, and trying to cope with their absence in their life.
Even if the album chooses what is essentially one specific type of song and firmly sticks with it to the point of excessive repetition, it makes up for it with other creative and subtle ways of making things interesting musically; tracks like "Manzanilla" and "Recrudece" stand out in their usage in unique time signatures - 7/8 and 6/8 respectively - as well as different rhythmic structures in the way the percussioning and vocals progress and some variation in things like how the singing is delivered, e.g. taking on a more voluminous, loud and passion-filled form in sections of "Recrudece". Even though it doesn't fully suffice to distinctualise each and every track, it allows the few songs that do contain intricacies like these to float above the baseline as more memorable and worthwile pieces overall.
Tempus Fugit does a passable job at conveying its messages and telling its tale of longing, conflicting feelings and reflecting on one's own actions towards someone one has sworn to love and care about. That being said, more could have been done here if the bar had been pushed ever so slightly to fully grasp the audience into the rich, heartstring-tugging atmosphere it tries to build up, albeit with a few bits and pieces still missing to reinforce it. Still, I wish the group the best of luck in their endeavours, and hope they achieve their success in being a voice for their corner of the wide world.