The long-awaited debut album from Lola Amour, a funk-pop band from the Philippines, has finally been released after multiple changes in their lineup, a pandemic, and a five-year wait. Rather than sticking to chart-topper conventions, the seven-piece band opted to go with their gut feeling and experiment with their music style. This resulted in a record that carries a balance of flamboyant creative decisions with digestible ones.
Throughout the album, there are instances where the band’s canny creative decisions paid off. One example is the song Namimiss Ko Na, where they cut down a two-minute horn solo to 45 seconds and replaced a metal riff with a disco tune, both over verses that address the pain of losing a loved one to dementia. Frontman and rhythm guitarist Pio Dumayas spits cocksure bars between happy handclaps and harmonies that accompany him in Umiinit, and in the much softer If I Ever Come Back, he raps accompanied by the band’s version of a gospel choir.
Their viral hit single Raining In Manila has brought a lot of attention to the band in countries with Overseas Filipino Worker communities. The earworm has been streamed over 124 million times on Spotify since its release and has received praise from various personalities, including Coldplay’s Chris Martin and K-pop boyband ENHYPEN.
The band is well known for their blurring of genre lines and their ability to collapse genres, which they showed off on Season 3 of Coke Studio with rapper Al James. The band members’ varied backgrounds inspired their creation of music, which draws inspiration from film and video game scores, garage rock, reggae, and guitar pop. Their new self-titled debut album carries their chief strength in blurring genre lines even further, with songs that pair well with Pio and King’s largely melancholic lyrics.
Despite the album’s acclaim, the process of making it was protracted and difficult. The band met six times a week just to make it happen, while also juggling day jobs and familial responsibilities. Nevertheless, the success of Raining In Manila convinced them to take a risk and pursue their passion, resulting in the birth of Lola Amour’s debut album
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