Selling the steak, not the sizzle

I remember watching Sandwich finish a thrashing set at a post-release party for Ang Nawawala, a movie that prominently featured their music, along with a dozen or so other local bands. I had seen Sandwich play at least half a dozen times over the years, but watching Raimund Marasigan looming over the mic like a hawk again, Diego Castillo interweaving guitar lines with Mong Alcaraz, Myrene Academia plucking those too-cool basslines, and Mike Dizon laying down the thrash, I was reacquainted with how great they are live: this was 13 years after their debut “Grip Stand Throw” came out, and they still played like they actually gave a sh*t!

I couldn’t help tapping Myrene on the arm when they exited the stage, saying, with an earnest gleam in my eye, “Thanks for rocking!” She looked at me, deadma, probably thinking I was nuts, or on drugs.
Indeed, bothering to “rock” is a thankless job, as countless bands who mount the non-paying stages of Manila know so well.

Seven albums in, Sandwich is in some ways the same band as they were with the release of 1999’s “Grip Stand Throw” and in other ways remarkably adaptive and resilient. Through personnel shifts and large-scale (and sometimes jingle) fame, they’ve weathered the music scene even longer than the Eraserheads did. With their latest, “Fat Salt & Flame,” the band is still an ad hoc mix of influences — rock and punk and thrash and alternative mixed with sly pop ballads and guitar noise. This outing is a bit darker and more direct than previous pop-friendly incarnations of their sound — after all, you can’t expect people to keep ordering the same sandwich over and over again — but it’s no less tasty, and it grows on the palate.

Opening with a stoner-friendly fuzz jam, title track Fat Salt & Flame is an instrumental that you can easily picture opening their current set (in fact, they use it for sound checks). The axe dual near the outro reminds us that Sandwich has always been a band concerned with guitar textures.

First single Back For More is textbook Marasigan: a chorus hook opens the song, leading to the shouted verses (anchored by surf beat drums), all leading to a catchy refrain (“I’m coming, coming back for more”).

Of course, Marasigan has always had a way with a hooky chorus, and songs like Kidlat and Mayday are no exception. (I guess I’ve always thought of him as the Dave Grohl type: a long time ago, he came out from a lead singer’s shadow to reveal — surprise! — a whole blueprint for how he wanted his own band to sound. He and Castillo have crafted that vision, first alongside guitarist/singer Marc Abaya, then recruiting Alacaraz as a replacement guitar foil.)

Sandwich, it’s more apparent than ever, are greater than the sum of their parts. Songs like The Week After develop from the ground up, circular guitar parts interlocking in call and response, the lyrics recited in casual bursts. (Naturally, the chorus erupts into a Marasigan shout-out.) Yet the whole album has a live feel.

Mayday, with its layers of guitar in the LSS chorus, played a part in both Ang Nawawala and its soundtrack; here, in its studio version, it cooks, it sways, it buzzes, it rocks.

New Romancer is Myrene’s take on things, and as it ponders real-life domestic details about kids and jobs, it almost feels like we’re watching Before Midnight: it may be the most “adult” song Sandwich have come up with, laced through with the refrain “No shame, no shame, no shame…” played against the line “What are we trying to mend?”

Sleepwalker is built on one of those classic three-note Sandwich riffs, pummeling its way to head-nodding territory, while Pray for Today is almost epic in its 5:17 length. (Actually the album seems a bit bitin at 35 minutes, but this also makes it punchier.) Meanwhile the sludgy Manhid, which closes the album, settles into a lengthy yet satisfying guitar solo by Razorback’s Tirso Ripol for the outro.

That Sandwich bothers to craft music that still rocks like this, 13 years in — rather than just going through the motions — should be an object lesson to all the whippersnappers out there: You have been served.

And the album title? Castillo told us once at SaGuijo that it refers to food. (Naturally. Everything does, eventually.) Fat, salt and flame: the essential ingredients needed to cook the perfect steak. Just the way they like it.

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“Fat Salt & Flame” was launched last April and is available through PolyEast Records, iTunes, etc. Diego Castillo informs us that a vinyl pressing of the album is in the works, so stay tuned.