Helado Negro

This Is How You Smile

Roberto Carlos Lange’s sixth and best album as Helado Negro deepens and expands upon the imagistic nature of his lyrics and cosmic synth-folk. It is a sublime, masterful piece of music.

A winning combination of his long-standing and more recently developed gifts, This Is How You Smile is a culmination of Helado Negro's work and completely relevant to when it was released.

Compassion, respite, camaraderie, and solidarity are what Lange is offering today, what he thinks we can use the most.

What makes it work is how even as he continues embracing more conventional instruments and structures, Lange still leaves room for himself to tinker and experiment at the same time. For music so understated and gentle, it's almost startling just how powerful it's capable of being.

Helado Negro has managed to craft an emotionally powerful classic with This is How You Smile.

Though Helado Negro (aka Roberto Carlos Lange) might not have diagrammed a 12-step program for smiling, the resulting model is informed by a spirit of persistence that one cannot help but be influenced by.

By no means does Negro shy away from his heritage, instead he looks to flaunt it. He continues to do so on ‘This Is How You Smile’, this time through a familiar scattering of hispanic influences and an intimate reflection of his past.

His latest album, This Is How You Smile, seems to take a slightly more relaxed approach, concentrating more on musical dynamics and reflecting a slightly idiosyncratic mood.