Artists experience creative booms in their careers, periods where their talents seem unfettered by any obstacle or inconvenience.
But, what’s to account for those booms? In the case of Ximena Sariñana, it’s the result of heat, pressure and the shifting tectonic plates of her life. The longtime Mexican singer/songwriter and actress is experiencing a creative boom that is best described as volcanic, an eruption of music that is being released as a trio of EPs. She’ll be performing songs from those records and an impressive back catalog when she returns to Houston Friday, May 2 at The Heights Theater.
Sariñana’s latest release is Rompe, which struck like Vesuvius on April 24. It followed the first EP of the series, last fall’s Ojos Diamante and precedes Las Cosas Simples, the final set of songs in the trilogy, which will drop later this year. As has been the case in Sariñana’s eclectic career, each set of songs sounds different sonically. A new wrinkle is the tracks from all three EPs share a common theme.
“It’s, I guess, the most explosive music that you’re going to hear in this new era. It’s a lot more close to my rock and indie/grunge influences that I had growing up, and it’s all about the rawness of the emotions that you feel when something falls apart, or there’s an explosion,” Sariñana said of Rompe, the four-track set which features “Chispa Roja,” the EP’s lead single.
“This is our second EP that we’re releasing under this story arc. Ojos Diamante, the first EP, was very introspective, a little bit more of what happens beneath the surface when everything is still kind of cold and structured. It was more pop and electronic, that sort of thing. Rompe is just full guitars, rawness and the lyrics are very introspective and personal and touch on the subject of reconnecting with who you are in order to survive the chaos and destruction.”
The volcanic theme is more than a motif for Sariñana. It’s personal. The idea of “reconnecting with who you are” is the lava here, the boiling thing that’s bubbled up in her recently. Her devoted fans know she was born into a creative family and began her entertainment career as an actress. Her father is the acclaimed Mexican film director Fernando Sariñana and her mother, Carolina Rivera, is an accomplished screenwriter and producer. They respectively directed and wrote Amar Te Duele, a blockbuster 2002 film seen as a Mexican film classic, which starred Ximena.
In her teens, Sariñana committed herself to music and has gone onto a Grammy and Latin Grammy nominated career. She’s appeared at Coachella, Lollapalooza, Bonnaroo, SXSW. She’s mixed thrilling collaborations with artists as diverse as Natalia Lafourcade, Los Ángeles Azules, Jason Mraz and Tegan & Sara into her own collection of five full-length albums. She’s been an MTV Award winner and has three million monthly Spotify listeners. And, she’s continued acting throughout her career, most recently starring in the Apple TV+ series, Las Azules.
All of that is the molten undersurface for her current artistic blast.
“I think you go through phases and stages. In 2018 I became a mom for the first time and in 2020 I welcomed my second child. I think for years I was focused on them and being a mom. Amor Adolescente, which was my album that came out in 2022, I kind of let go of a little bit of the songwriting process, like I did song camps in order to come up with really cool songs, it was a very collective effort, which was great. I was kind of in that sort of place where I needed help in every area of my life,” she said.
“I think 2023, which is when I ended up writing all these songs, I think it was sort of a natural pendulum, going back into ‘Where am I?’, ‘Who am I?’ re-finding yourself after becoming a mom and giving yourself 100 percent to other people. Where am I musically, where am I personally?
“I don’t think the real coming of age is when you’re 15, 16. You’re always constantly growing and evolving and becoming different people. I think, after having my kids, it kind of reinforced certain values that I have and certain things that I want for myself and accepting myself 100 percent for who I am. That is just a great place to be creatively.”
The narrative of the songs, she said is “these sorts of emotional cycles, they’re illustrated by a volcanic eruption. You have three different stages. There’s the sleeping volcano, where everything is about to boil and erupt. And then you have the explosion, which is Rompe, and then you have the calmness of post-explosion where everything starts growing again and it’s just a different energy.”
That post-explosion album is titled Las Cosas Simples, which takes the music in a direction that’s “kind of going back to the simplicity. The sound is a lot more acoustic, more folky, more roots, I guess. So yeah, that’s going to be the third one.”
Sariñana is on a 16-date U.S. tour that makes its way to The Heights Theater this week. She said she’s got the kids in tow for part of the tour and she’s looking forward to visiting the city, since she’s familiar with it and has friends here. But also, by the time she and her band arrive, she’ll know a lot more about the songs from her current releases.
“It’s very exciting, I’m very happy. I like to tour actually,” she said. “You focus for 15 or 16 shows and you just go, go, go, go, go. By the end of the tour, your sound — because you’ve been playing pretty much every night – you’re more like in your zone. They’re really good shows. I feel that the venue sizes are also just great for exploring different set lists, you can get more personal with people, more intimate. That’s great, that’s fun.”
Ximena Sariñana returns to Houston Friday, May 2 at The Heights Theater, 339 W. 19th, with special guest Lulu Bolos. Doors at 7 p.m. and showtime at 8 p.m. for this all-ages event. $28-$384.
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2025.
