Kevin Bronson on February 26th, 2020

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Chicano Batman’s new single “Color My Life” takes the quartet’s winning combination of Latin influences and retro psychedelic-soul to a whole new level. It’s the first song from their just-announced new album “Invisible People,” due May 1.

Singer-keyboardist Bardo Martinez calls it “a neck-breaker from the future, beckoning a retreat to nature in the apocalyptic dawn. This is Chicano Batman’s new single for all generations past and for all those yet to be born. Everything is everything, brothers and sisters.”

The quartet — Martinez, Eduardo Arenas, Carlos Arévalo and Gabriel Villa — has risen slowly from a band beloved in their scene to one whose fusion music speaks to the broad fabric of Los Angeles. They do so in a relentlessly optimistic — or, at least, hopeful — way. The vibe is that we’re all in this together, “living in the playback we see,” Martinez reminds in the new song.

The new album was produced by Lee Michels (Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings, Lee Fields & the Expressions) and mixed by Grammy-winning engineer Shawn Everett (Alabama Shakes, the War on Drugs, Cold War Kids, Local Natives).

The George Mays-directed video for the new single finds Chicano Batman on the streets, beaches and boardwalks of Southern California — as always, deep in the groove.

||| Watch: The video for “Color My Life”

||| Live: Chicano Batman plays Coachella on April 10 and 17. They also headline the Shrine Expo Hall on May 29, joined by Crumb and Le Butcherettes. Tickets on sale at 10 a.m. Friday.

||| Previously: Live at the Fonda Theatre, “Freedom Is Free,” “Friendship (Is a Small Boat in a Storm)”