El Valiente: Press

Voted BEST NEW BAND 2008 by Isthmus Readers

Without a doubt, this is the most creative guitar-centric rock act working in Madison today.

El Valiente lurk and charge through spaces as broad and bleak as the Grand Canyon. The group's guitar, glockenspiel, bass, and drums prove boldest when drifting off into a skeletal void between slowcore, spaghetti western, and free jazz.

Just when you think the local instrumentalists are all about limitless desert vistas and parched bones glowing in the moonlight, they let loose with an explosion of guitars that takes you back to the glory days of post-punk.

El Valiente 's free jazz and spaghetti western washes are mind-bending enough to be the soundtrack to the dreams of surreal director Alejandro Jodorowsky.

What better way to close out the week’s ticket orgy than with El Valiente. I will admit that I had never heard or heard of El Valiente until this post, but holy hell I am impressed. If nobody takes these tickets I will break ranks and take them myself. El Valiente are a post-rock group (man I am full of hyphens) who’s free jazz influenced rock slays me. If you are a fan of Mogwai or The Album Leaf you are already familiar with El Valiente. If you’re not as I am or was, then you are doing yourself a disservice by not catching this show.

Instrumentals surging with bursts of noise and wondrously drifting melodies. For three guys with such a humble stage presence, the group crafts some bold--perhaps even valient?-- work, spicing up the basic rock-trio format with glockenspiel and unwieldy song structures on the recently released El Topo. For an idea that sounds so interesting on paper, El Valiente is also quite respectable live, staying clear and tight even at a cramped King Club show last month.

TOP LOCAL RELEASE OF 2008
Not only the best album to come out of Madison this year but by far one of the best live performers. El Valiente were kind enough to play the Dane101, "Save Us from the Russian Spambots‚ show back in August and tore the house down, so much so that the above mentioned Pale Young Gentlemen were so floored by El Valiente performance that even they were calling for an encore. The music is simple to its core but emotive in its delivery, and the noise, the sound, it doesn't matter the venue El Valiente come to impress.