Obeses (ES)

About

Catalan pop rock outfit Obeses have made a habit of doing things their own way since forming in Tona, in the Osona region, back in 2010. Their debut record Obesisme Il·lustrat left critics scratching their heads trying to pin down a genre, yet composer Albert Guinovart and singer Núria Feliu were among those who championed it. The second album Zel only deepened the divide: some called them unparalleled geniuses, others called their output an oddity. Journalist Empar Moliner put it simply in the newspaper Ara: they have very little to do with what anyone else is doing. Their ambition keeps scaling up. For the Monstres i Princeses tour they performed alongside municipal bands and orchestras, closing with a two hour production at the Teatre Nacional de Catalunya. In 2016 they premiered a rock opera about Catalan poet Jacint Verdaguer, later releasing it as a double CD. Their fifth album Fills de les estrelles, which included the single Ens en sortirem as a nod to the events of 1 October 2017 in Catalonia, showed they were not about to soften their ambitions anytime soon.