It has been 8 years since Guardarraya last released an album. The new album title “Me Fui a Volver”, seems entirely fitting given their long absence – a nonsensical idiom that has been a staple of colloquial talk in Quito-, it roughly translates to “I went to return”.

The sound of Guardarraya has always about mixing some of the more traditional sounds that were inescapable during a normal upbringing in Ecuador, interspersed with some more contemporary elements of rock, at times spoken word, and in a couple very specific times hip-hop.

It has always been a sound that feels, at least to local youths, very akin to the living experience in any of the andean cities, a sound that draws as much from the traditional sounds of the andes as it does from the canteens found in the underbellies of the traditional historic centers of each of these urban settlements. “Me Fui a Volver” finds them digging even deeper into the folkloric roots that have always been part of their music while also expanding their sonic horizon through a heavy use of synthesizers where there had been none or very little.

“Me Fui a Volver” is a tremendous collection of songs with a sonic palette as diverse as the themes it touches upon -life after death, somber tales of sad clowns, repenting recounts of hangovers and tales of unrequited love- all to be found in the album’s one hour span.

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Stream “Me Fui a Volver” on Spotify.