Since blowing up on NPR’s Tiny Desk, Argentine duo CA7RIEL & Paco Amoroso have been on a rollercoaster ride – blazing through 60 global tour dates, conquering major festivals and even picking up a Grammy (and multiple Latin Grammys) along the way. Then came December 2025, when they would suddenly postpone their much-hyped sophomore album – at the time ‘Top Of The Hills’ – admitting to being “swept up in a level of exposure” and needing a break.
Three months later, an album is here, but instead it’s ‘Free Spirits’, a madcap, meta mixtape meant to chronicle those ups and downs. The record finds CA7RIEL & Paco Amoroso searching for their true north after global stardom. If the duo’s debut ‘Baño María’ was a cohesive, vivid fantasy, ‘Free Spirits’ is more like a collage, leaning heavily on the pastiche to inform the duo’s vision of fame and excess, and their flipside.
The duo circle around the topic of burnout on ‘Free Spirits’, and they aren’t shy about picking at their own scars. “I say I’m fine, but the truth is / If I keep smoking (I’ll die) / If I keep screwing around (I’ll die) / If I keep touring (I’ll die),” they sing on disco confessional ‘Muero’. On house experiment ‘No Me Sirve Más’, they flex cash but also confess: “The more I have, the worse I feel.” Even the lone love ballad, ‘Vida Loca’, is laced with fame fatigue. “Being famous is terrible / I wish I could be a hippie,” Paco sighs, turning sharp wordplay into regret.
The album shines brightest when it goes full tilt. ‘Ha Ha’, sampling Palito Ortega’s 1967 hit ‘La felicidad’, morphs from brassy slow jam to bass-heavy rock rave. “Yesterday I almost killed myself / But today I am better,” they sing, teetering between disaster and euphoria. Anderson .Paak‘s cameo on ‘Ay Ay Ay’ is just as remarkable, a gloriously filthy, tongue-out romp that laces Caribbean guajira with plucky guitars before morphing into a hazier .Paak-stamped R&B groove. Closer ‘Lo Quiero Ya!’, the duo’s second linkup with British producer Fred Again.., also stands out, serving as an older sister to their 2019 breakout screeching techno club banger ‘Ola Mina XD’.
Though, not all experimentation on ‘Free Spirits’ is as smooth, nor do they always have the same lyrical insight. Opener ‘Nada Nuevo’ toys with Indian sounds and tongue-in-cheek lines, but devolves into meme-level filler. “I’m not Lady Gaga / They mistake me for her in New York / But I’m not Lady Gaga,” the duo repeat ad nauseam. ‘Goo Goo Ga Ga’ with Jack Black is also a misfire. It opens with bossa-nova promise and clever musings about growing old from Paco (“I feel like the best is over / The best years of my life / What’s coming is sure to be worse / What if people forget me?”), but that introspection quickly fizzles out and in lieu, there’s simplistic baby gags and stifled sex innuendos.
Comparison seems to be the biggest enemy of ‘Free Spirits’. The project is fun and frenetic but lacks the instant stickiness of their debut and could use fewer Anglo features as glue. CA7RIEL & Paco Amoroso have described ‘Free Spirits’ as “complex, fun, honest, with a little bit of everything” – and sonically it lives up to its name, revelling in being unconstrained, even if it’s lyrically all over the place.
