Jessica Hernandez & the Deltas’ long-simmering follow-up to their well-received 2014 debut, Secret Evil, is a double album with a unique wrinkle — dubbed Telephone/Telefono (and dropping Friday), it features one album in English and the other in Spanish. Even more curious is the fact that, unlike artists who have attempted similar bilingual endeavors, each version will be slightly different, both lyrically and sonically.
“Spanish tends to make things a little softer and a little more bubblegum,” Hernandez said in a recent interview with Colorado Springs Independent. “So sometimes there were some weird creative calls I had to make to get the same edge that the song might have in English. I might have made the Spanish one a little bit grittier and dirtier, just to evoke that same emotion.”
Telephone’s first single, “Hot Damn,” is a taut, Blues-infused rocker in the mold of early Yeah Yeah Yeahs, with Hernandez’s versatile voice moving from pouty to righteous as the song moves from the verse to the chorus.
The title track is a slow burner in which Hernandez sings about a seemingly long-distance relationship that is both aided and hindered by the telephone. Horn and keyboard stabs accentuate the conflicted tone in her voice, as she admits that communicating via such a device is “not enough for you right now.”
The album closes with “Fire & Ice,” a slinky, funked-out Soul tune that finds Hernandez delving yet again into her favorite topic: relationships and how they’re impacted by both physical and mental interaction.
Hernandez and her band’s Cincinnati show is at Deschutes Brewery’s temporary “pop-up” bar, in between the riverfront stadiums at The Banks. Saturday’s event — which raises money for the Starfire Council and Cincinnati Children’s Hospital — is family-friendly and free, running 2-10 p.m.
This article appears in Jun 21-28, 2017.