Manic Hispanic – Grupo Sexo

I was excited to see that Manic Hispanic was coming out with a new CD. Although I had never heard a song by them, I had heard tons of good things about them and loved their ironic take on the famed Descendents CD name and artwork with Mijo Goes To Jr. College. But despite all the good things I’ve heard about them, after hearing Grupo Sexo, I must say that I’m disappointed.

The first thing I noticed was the shocking resemblance Welcome To Paramount had to another song I had previously heard. It took me a while to think of it, but then it hit me: Welcome To Paradise byGreen Day! Its pretty much the same song! It may have different words, but its the same sound, beat and melodies. This took me by surprise. A cover band? That’s the last thing I thought Manic Hispanicwere, and although they aren’t a straight cover band, all they do is take already written songs and change the lyrics around. They have songs by Minor Threat, Circle Jerks, Descendents, The Clash and even The Ramones! Almost every big name of punk is in here and although all the original versions have become classics, these reworked songs are always lacking something.

The songs tend to get boring after a while. The vocals get slightly annoying, and the talking bits between some of the songs just want to make your ears bleed. You really don’t want to hear a guy suffering from diarrhea only having through the album. And sadly, that’s not the worst waste of time during the talking bits. The minute long sketch before Big Chorizo makes the listener slowly go insane with boredom and aggravation.

Fans of former Manic Hispanic releases may like this, but I’m not sure because I haven’t heard anything else by them (nor do I really want to). The entire CD seems lackluster and boring – a very disappointing release.