Alcalá Norte have been so present at festivals over the last year that it is hard to believe that they are ready to release their second album, but we must remember that their celebrated self-titled debut was released in April 2024, almost two years ago. His successor will be released in September.
Precisely, the public channel has been in charge of releasing the first single from this second album through the program Mañana Más presented by Ángel Carmona. This is the announced ‘The Planet Man’, which can be heard on platforms starting this morning, already on March 5.
‘The Planet Man’ follows the line of songs like ‘La vida canyon’ or ‘La calle elfo’, which means that it alternates narrative stanzas with explosive choruses. Guitars that oscillate between jangle and post-punk, along with gothic keyboards, build a continuous sound of Alcalá Norte’s debut but also a single as clear as those previously mentioned.
‘The Planet Man’ had been presented with a cover that raised suspicions for its alleged use of AI, since the hand represented had six fingers. However, these suspicions arise from ignorance, as the song tells the story of Niccolò Paganini, a virtuoso violinist of the Romantic era, who was rumored to play so well because he had six fingers and had sold his soul to the devil. In reality, his fingers were simply unusually long.
‘The Planet Man’ is told from Paganini’s point of view and inspired by the story that Heinrich Heine wrote about him in his story ‘The Florentine Nights’. “There the alter ego Maximilian whispered to his friend María, in the last hours of her life, different stories, among which was his version of the life of Paganini and his episode of selling his soul to the devil,” Álvaro Rivas tells Mañana Más. “It seemed to me that the story asked for a song. Hayden told the story of Paganini before and after the sale of his soul, and I tried to capture Hayden’s lexicon to represent just what was missing in the text, the moment when Paganini negotiates the price of his soul with the devil.
