Jul 16

Jul 16 Maya - Despierta EP

Maya
Despierta EP
Release Date: July 15th, 2021
Genre: Metal/Hardcore
Label: Shark City Recordings

I’m not going to recap what happened in 2020 or the beginning of 2021. We all know at this point; we’ve all lived it. A couple months into the pandemic, after struggling with thoughts of self-loathing, depression, and an overall hopelessness, I tried to look at the positive things that were going to come out of the world. This is a shit situation, but sometimes, shit can breed beautiful art. Film, television, music, writing, the works. At one point, it began to occur to me that whenever this ended, we would start to receive a massive influx of artists who have channeled their inner turmoil, their sadness, their apoplectic rage into their work from having been cooped up inside for so long as we adjust to a rapidly changing world.

Maya, an emerging hardcore band from my hometown of San Jose, CA, is one of the first artists I’ve discovered in my recent deep dive of newer music that has managed to accurately capture the feelings of frustration that have arisen from the state of the world. And they managed to do it in eleven minutes. Their newest offering, an EP entitled Despierta (which translates to “awakening”) is a full-scale assault that ranges to blend the thrash metal stylings of a band like Slayer with acts at the forefront of hardcore and metalcore like The Acacia Strain.

As I mentioned before, the EP is only eleven minutes long (six tracks total). Within fifteen seconds of hitting play on EP’s eponymous first track, Maya waste absolutely no time showing you what they’re about; thrash-inspired leads that chug playfully along until the vocals kick in, where the band’s attack is focused, in-your-face, and without mercy. The band began writing the six songs that make up Despierta as soon as the pandemic began, and their lyrics range from topics surrounding the political state of the world (“Demonios”), family (“Sangrando”), and “Justice O Paz”, a barely minute-long track that touches on what I can only assume was the world’s reaction to the death of George Floyd (“He couldn’t breathe while the world choked/This cannot be the future we leave/For our families”).

A standout moment on Despierta comes in the form of “Prayers”, a two-minute long track with lyrics like “The consequences are coming for your throat/There’s no repenting the damage has been done/Run if you want to/No place to fucking hide”. It’s brutal and hard to turn away from, signaling a warning to the song’s subject that even though you have no way out of the consequences of your actions, you might as well try and show a little mercy.

Hardcore, whether in metal or punk, has always had the ability to spark social change, to act as a supplemental commentary track to the film that is the world. Maya have managed to pull off a hard-hitting effort of an EP in half the time of their predecessors, while having a little fun in the process. A great introduction to this band, and one that I’m fortunate enough to have come across.

Editor’s Note: The band are currently in the process of changing their name from Maya Over Eyes to Maya. If for some reason you can’t find the band’s work when doing a search across Spotify, Apple Music, etc., this may be why.