My Review: Meena - Newspapers

Meena - Newspapers

Do you realise, then, that Manchester is alive, capable, despite the fact the world no longer attributes the right value to it, of continually being present at musical peaks?

Here is another marvellous example of refined grace, a band who have now reached their third release, after their debut with EP in 2020, followed by Can't See in 2021.

Newspapers is the continuation of a sonic and stylistic journey that navigates among shoegaze effusions supported by poetic Indie Rock sensations, resulting in an urban design that, flying from Manchester, lands on the sea of great sensitivity.

It is remarkable to see a hip hop-style drum machine governing the flow of guitars swollen with reverberations, as are the vocals, in a dense fog in which the bass, sick and distorted, completes a powerful amalgam. 

Able to conjugate, mix, invent a new stylistic approach, the Mancunian quartet is a dew of noise placed inside a muffled electronic basin, which as a final result gives a shoegaze cloud of rare beauty, but no musical style can define this magic: Manchester still lives and pulses with delicacies that cannot be silenced. 

Alex Dematteis

Musicshockworld

Salford

23rd January 2023

https://meenaband.bandcamp.com/album/newspapers

La mia Recensione: Meena - Newspapers

Meena - Newspapers

Ma allora lo capite che Manchester è viva, capace, malgrado il mondo non le attribuisca più il giusto valore, di essere presente continuamente nelle vette musicali?

Ecco un altro meraviglioso esempio di grazia raffinata, una band che è giunta alla terza pubblicazione, dopo l'esordio con EP del 2020, seguito da Can't  See del 2021.

Newspapers è la continuazione di un percorso sonoro e stilistico che naviga tra effusioni Shoegaze supportate da poetiche sensazioni Indie Rock, che danno come risultato un disegno urbano che, volando da Manchester, atterra sul mare di una grande sensibilità.

Notevole vedere una drum machine in stile hip hop governare i flussi di chitarre gonfie di riverberi, così come lo sono le voci, in una fitta nebbia in cui il basso, malato e distorto, completa un'amalgama poderosa. 

In grado di coniugare, miscelare, inventare un approccio stilistico nuovo, il quartetto Mancuniano è una rugiada noise messa dentro un bacino elettronico ovattato, che come risultato finale consegna una nube shoegaze di rara bellezza, ma nessuno stile musicale può definire questa magia: Manchester vive e pulsa ancora di prelibatezze alle quali non si può mettere il bavaglio. 

Alex Dematteis

Musicshockworld

Salford

23 Gennaio 2023

https://meenaband.bandcamp.com/album/newspapers

My Review: TTSSFU - Remember

 TTSSFU - Remember

My beloved Manchester remembers a not so distant past and returns to ride an Alternative wave with Shoegaze stains, reviving an association between musical genres that have many points of contact. An amazing single that brings linen cloths to thoughts and caresses bodies, a collaboration with tenderness that makes the traffic of gloomy souls clearer, since these guys are messengers of goodness and with their superfine class induce new expansions, of calm and respect. A simple but sprawling bass line, coupled with a guitar that does the same, gives magic and lightness. One dreams of a better world and the song is already capable of creating it: Manchester, please welcome these children as a necessary redemption after years of grey because we all need it…

Alex Dematteis

Musicshockworld

Salford

19th January 2023

https://ttssfu.bandcamp.com/track/remember

La mia Recensione: TTSSFU - Remember

 TTSSFU - Remember

La mia adorata Manchester si ricorda di un passato non così lontano e torna a cavalcare un’onda Alternative con macchie Shoegaze, ridando spazio a un sodalizio tra generi musicali che hanno molti punti di contatto. Un singolo strepitoso che porta stoffe di lino nei pensieri e accarezza i corpi, un approccio con la tenerezza che rende il traffico di anime cupe maggiormente sgombro, dal momento che questi ragazzi sono messaggeri di bontà e con la loro classe sopraffina inducono a nuove espansioni, di calma e rispetto. Una linea di basso semplice ma tentacolare, unita a una chitarra che fa lo stesso, regala magia e leggerezza. Si sogna un mondo migliore e il brano è capace già di crearlo: Manchester, accogli questi figli come un riscatto necessario dopo anni di grigio perché ne abbiamo tutti bisogno…

Alex Dematteis

Musicshockworld

Salford

19 Gennaio 2023

https://ttssfu.bandcamp.com/track/remember

La mia Recensione: The Slow Readers Club - Modernise

 The Slow Readers Club - Modernise

Il mondo conserva una sola bellezza: quella di non cedere.

Ci vuole una forza incredibile per vivere dentro questo impeto, spesso non credibile, vista la massa infinita di violenze che lo rendono pressoché bruttissimo e insostenibile. E la residenza di questa bellezza rivela contraddizioni che diventano respiri torbidi e annacquati, senza una parvenza di credibilità…

Manchester la grigia, l’intossicata di fragili tendenze tecnologiche, di pulsioni verso l’assoluta distruzione di un glorioso passato, la nuova città liberale connessa a una americanizzazione pesante, ha tra i suoi cittadini quattro ragazzi che sanno mediare perfettamente e riducono il disastro con un atteggiamento tra il progressista e il conservatore. E, nella loro costante crescita artistica, sono in grado di connettere quella umana con sguardi, tecniche,  sogni e abilità che traducono il talento in una casa piena di ogni tesoro necessario, sapendo custodire quello che fuori potrebbe smarrirsi. Ma il loro potere più grande è proprio quello di mettere a disposizione del mondo i beni del loro alveare senza veder consumata nemmeno una goccia del loro miele.

La loro avanzata verso traiettorie che possano includere evoluzioni, varianti, ritorni e slanci futuristi è inarrestabile: nuovo esempio è il loro nuovo singolo Modernise, ultimo momento disponibile prima del loro imminente sesto album in studio Knowledge Freedom Power, in uscita il 24 di Febbraio.

Spingono totalmente verso il dark electro mediante il quale, con Cavalcade, avevano incominciato a rendere i cuori di molti pieni di colori e gravidi di ammirazione, con in aggiunta una accortezza maggiore nella fase di produzione, stabilendo il contatto irresistibile di una presa melodica rivisitata e nutrita di moderne espansioni. Ed ecco che tutta l’elettronica rivela il lato composto, ordinato, scheletrico e flessibile al contempo di Aaron Starkie, che prende le redini della band Mancuniana, per trascinare gli altri compagni in una ristrutturazione che fa guadagnare freschezza e nuovi riferimenti stilistici.

Modernise è una danza ipnotica, aggressiva, piena di tagli elettronici, in elevata percentuale di rapimento possibile, per sbalordire e stordire, come un mantra che toglie l’attenzione da tutto il resto. Con un inizio con prodomi ebm, il brano è una corteccia velenosa che stabilisce ciò che il singolo precedente (che dà il titolo all’album) aveva anticipato: vi è una linfa nuova che sembra uscita dai vicoli bizzarri di Manchester, da uffici in cerca di un rimedio alla noia.

Aaron si fa messaggero di quella positività che contagia, nel tempo in cui quella parola ha seminato sconvolgimenti, portando tutto fuori dai blocchi di partenza verso un deciso scatto nel futuro.

Adorabile è la molteplicità dei compromessi tra i membri della band, le alternanze individuali che spalmano la canzone nel territorio dell’evidente controllo delle parti. Il tutto risulta vitaminico, risorsa per nuove riflessioni e per voltare alle spalle al grigio e ai chiaroscuri delle nostre esistenze. Carico di sfumature, di una volontà cosciente che spinge al rifiuto di essere la conseguenza dal proprio passato, il brano offre beats, trucchi e linee irriverenti nei confronti di chi invece si è adagiato su cliché privi di fertilità e modernità. 

Chiarissimo il messaggio per quella che sarà la prima canzone del nuovo album (il coraggio non è mai mancato ai quattro, ammettiamolo), con una apertura verso il tema del lavoro, una rinnovata identità che ci dà la possibilità di vivere, per una modernizzazione più che mai necessaria e inevitabile, un chip mentale che deve costantemente aggiornarsi.

Concludendo: quello che sarà un album tra i più luccicanti del 2023 ha appena donato al mondo un singolo con cui fare l’amore, sorridendo…

Alex Dematteis

Musicschockworld

Salford

4 Gennaio 2023

https://open.spotify.com/track/2q1ckY10MNAl8GvALWWELK?si=r4wF0XopTjC-86Fmq0Wp0g

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ah7AXp6FMK4&t=52s

My Review: The Slow Readers Club - Modernise

 The Slow Readers Club - Modernise

The world retains only one beauty: that of not giving in.

It takes incredible strength to live within this enthusiasm, which is often not credible, given the infinite mass of violence that makes it almost ugly and unsustainable. And the residence of this beauty reveals contradictions that become turbid and weaken breaths, without even the appearance of credibility...

Manchester the grey, the city intoxicated by fragile technological tendencies, by impulses towards the absolute destruction of a glorious past, the new liberal town connected to a heavy Americanisation, has among its citizens four guys who know how to mediate perfectly and reduce the disaster with an attitude between the progressive and the conservative. And, in their constant artistic growth, they are able to connect the human one with looks, techniques, dreams and skills that translate talent into a house full of every necessary treasure, managing to guard what could be lost outside. But their greatest power is precisely that of making the goods of their hive available to the world without seeing a single drop of their honey consumed.

Their advance towards trajectories that may include evolutions, variations, comebacks and futuristic leaps is unstoppable: a new example is their new single Modernise, the last available moment before their forthcoming sixth studio album Knowledge Freedom Power, to be released on 24 February.

They push totally towards the dark electro by means of which, with Cavalcade, they had begun to make the hearts of many full of colour and pregnant with admiration, with in addition a greater shrewdness in the production phase, establishing the irresistible contact of a revisited melodic grip and nourished with modern expansions. And here all the electronic music reveal the composed, ordered, skeletal and flexible side of Aaron Starkie, who takes the reins of the Mancunian band, to drag the other comrades in a renovation that gains freshness and new stylistic references.

Modernise is a hypnotic and aggressive dance, full of electronic cuts, as paralyzing as possible, to amaze and stun, like a mantra that takes your attention away from everything else. Beginning with ebm prodomes, the track is a poisonous bark that establishes what the previous single (which gives the album its title) had anticipated: there is a new lifeblood that seems to have come out of the bizarre alleys of Manchester, from offices in search of a remedy to boredom.

Aaron becomes the messenger of that infectious positivity, at a time when that word has sown upheaval, taking everything out of the starting blocks towards a decisive dash into the future.

The multiplicity of compromises among the band members is adorable, as are the individual alternations that spread the song in the territory of evident control of the parts. The whole is vitaminic, a resource for new reflections and for turning our backs on the grey and chiaroscuro of our existences. Loaded with nuances, with a conscious will that pushes the refusal to be the consequence of one's past, the song offers beats, tricks and lines that are irreverent in respect of those who have settled on clichés devoid of fertility and modernity. 

The message for what will be the first song of the new album is very clear (the four guys have never lacked courage, let's admit it), with an opening towards the theme of work, a renewed identity that gives us the possibility of living, for a modernisation that is more necessary and inevitable than ever, a mental chip that must constantly be updated.

In conclusion: what will be one of the most brilliant albums of 2023 has just given the world a single to make love to, smiling...

Alex Dematteis

Musicshockworld

Salford

4th January 2023

https://open.spotify.com/track/2q1ckY10MNAl8GvALWWELK?si=r4wF0XopTjC-86Fmq0Wp0g

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ah7AXp6FMK4&t=52s

My Review: The Slow Readers Club - Cavalcade

The Slow Readers Club - Cavalcade

There is nothing to do: in front of what is vital we cant’t escape, we are trapped, sometimes even gently. And it is an event that has a cyclical nature, it feeds on itself to flood the senses in a blissful multitude. We seldom have an appointment with all this, perhaps with music the percentage of this probability grows.

In 2015 the second album of the band born in Salford was released: The Slow Readers Club, who with Cavalcade opened the doors of notoriety and began to be understood and consequently adored. The self-titled debut record had already shown their worth, although the band was not satisfied with the production. Magically sad tracks that made people dance with eyes ablaze with tears. Then this work made hearts burst supported by attention-grabbing singles and putting them on the lips of many. The musical mix shifted slightly while still retaining clear signs that the electro-dark genre fit the needs of the four guys in search of perfect songs. This required more dynamics and a turn toward greater integration among the instruments. It happened, thus giving the green light to Aaron, who injected the trail of every cry into his voice to sow power into a uvula devoted to unchained immensity. And the whole band took a remarkable step forward, with maturity as a consequence of a desire to make music a reason for total existence: it happened shortly afterwards, when the four  guys left their jobs to live totally on this passion.

Cavalcade was and always will be their breakthrough album, with the legacy of songs steeped in charm and capable of engaging the listener in a path of emotional lights and thorns that scratch the skin of the heart, with the senses surrounding thoughts often short of breath as they are able to show the true suffocating face of our existence. Here is life appearing with its crosses, a faith increasingly weighed down by mysticism, relationships made of depression, precipices and dizziness that make our wrists shake. The past, the present, and the future, united by chains that, through Aaron Starkie's extraordinary verses, find a way for all their fragility to be felt and exposed, find adjustment with the music that finds itself clinging to their expectations. The twelve tracks highlight skills and convictions, are credible and inject us into the subcutaneous life reflections and dances, connected and sealed for the future, with the certainty that they will not suffer aging. We are always moved, we feel cuddled by their sad-smiling tenderness, we are pierced by a wisdom that hurts, ending up succumbing to odorous atmospheres, through redundant guitars, keyboards with catchy loops and a rhythm section which creates a shiver on the trembling air, to make our life much more than a soundtrack. The Mancunians, with their gloomy electro-Dark, do not deny themselves trips into the 80s, but feel the need to remain anchored in modern sounds and create a perspective in which everything should be projected into the future, without nostalgia to weigh it down. You can feel all the energy, the exuberance that becomes a merit, melancholy as a duty, to make songs pilots of dreams and findings that also reveal the need to create new boundaries, thoughts and musical styles. Everything is solemn, heavy, frustrating in a pleasing way, deductive and devastating at the same time, as if the fun part of The Human League, of Soft Cell, could embrace the dark dynamics of Joy Division, in an artistic marriage that leaves no doubt about the talent and skills that will surely grow. Songs like vessels, like fresh grains in the earth eager for continuous and powerful seedings. We always have the certainty that life and death in the songs will find an embrace that can shock, because they are immersed in that melancholy that no one can deny is the common denominator of all existence. Compositions that give the impression of finding a way, in the live dimension, to have no constraints of development in the sounds, to leave room for small upheavals, and this will happen punctually. Some of them outclass the others: it would seem to be a negative judgment, in reality it confirms a very high level, making it possible to become attached to those that are able to immediately capture us. Therein lies the value of the album: what seems like its most devastating inferiority is realized in those songs that, apparently, seem inferior, less incisive. Those will be the ones that will attract you completely. Preceded by four singles (Forever In Your Debt, I Saw A Ghost, Start Again, Don't Mind) and with a fifth after the release (Plant The Seed), the other seven compositions are also potentially capable of being hypothetical singles, showing themselves to be easy prey to listening, with a willingness to write songs that know how to get to the heart without hesitation. 

Jim Glennie, bassist in James, realized their potential and invited the band to support them, eventually giving the four boys the visibility they needed, which led them to inevitable success.

It is the album that changed destiny, showing that their charts had the strength to enter the reception with eyes turned toward the future, the signature of the realization that their beauty would create new followers. 

Something morbid and soft penetrates our souls, which is inevitable, since the songs are psychedelic organisms, as they transport us from the subconscious to the earthly dimension: there is always the impression of a journey to the mystery that is only partially revealed. The interplays of the melodies have conspicuous brushstrokes of grey, the rhythms awaken the body's impulses to throw it into the most sublime and engaging emphasis, with the lyrics soaring because of their desire to make us question, while the tears live on effective, prehensile runs and slowdowns, destined to stick in our mind, which becomes generous in hosting them, albeit they are capable of often killing faith in man. And it is this sincerity that makes them irresistible.

The guitars are hooks, tremors, vibrations with many echoes, big brothers of our dreams. The bass, fat thorn on our breaths, continually wraps itself around our thoughts, to slam them to the ground, with seduction and skill. The drumming is precise, without ambitions of megalomania, and not because of technical defect: it is simply perfect so as not to deprive us of necessary dances. Keyboards are mermaids with  sly and thin nails, yet capable of entering the lower planes of our mood, to make it weep with majestic scratches.

The voice? A book would need to be written in this regard: and it would not be enough. Aaron is the master of tone, of modes of expression that make the soul vibrate, immersing it in the darkness of every breath, making his every note sacred. Addiction becomes ecstasy and one cannot help but have wet eyes, at least be moved, because that sensory bell is the vibration of an emotion that wants to be experienced.

You know, yes, and very well, that it is time to get to know these twelve flashes closely, with the hope that nothing will stand in the way of your total falling in love.

Song by Song 

1 Start Again

Never forget to pay attention to the lyrics of each song.

The magnetic fluid of the opening track is entrusted to a pressing bass that doesn't let go. Followed by two guitars that weld it all together with a fluid propensity to dream and fluorescent synthesizers.

2 I Saw A Ghost

Bang! We enter the story of a person unable to get out of depression with a perfect track: it moves across a continuous vortex in the head with verses in which Aaron's poignant vocals devastate us. In addition, the guitar is a melancholic wave that makes the senses square, with the bass warming the skin at the same time. The chorus becomes the black forest of every mental prison. 

3 Forever In Your Debt

Accompanied by a video which has the power to make us melancholy, the song demonstrates the class of the Mancunian guys who need no changes to explode in our rapacious willingness to be seduced by such sinful sadness. Bass and kick drum open the dance and then Aaron takes our hearts until Kurtis becomes the wizard of rhythmic-melodic solicitation, which will find in the refrain all the dust surrounding the loneliness of the protagonist of the track. 

4 Plant The Seed

You fly, you fall, you float in the 80's but with the curiosity of the current years for a song that sees in the refrain placed right at the beginning the two brothers on vocals. With an elegant synth almost segregated by the guitars and voluptuous bass, one manages to become a dreamy body in flight, with four decades blessing the splendour of this creation.

5 Days Like This Will Break Your Heart

Vibrant emotion is felt with these vocals that slaughter all resistance, in the dark and intriguing demonstration that the four are hurricanes of noble sentiments, as they are meant to scratch our every wound, even more. Irresistible show of fallen fantasies and photographs that establish loneliness.

6 Don't Mind

And it's love that wins: a song dedicated to the singer's bride and which sees the atmospheres take on light in a dreamy, pop viaticum dominated by Aaron's voice and the combination of keyboards and guitar as they lead us to a moment of serenity. With a delightful falsetto that wraps us poetically.

7 Cavalcade

A guitar riding through elegant echoes frames lyrics that paralyze with intensity and see the song grow even more so as the entire rhythm section manifests its powerful seriousness. Tears walk over the heart eventually touching everything inside as it rolls into a bombastic dance. And this voice should be given an award for enchantment.

8 Fool For Your Philosophy.

A song that has been present in their live sets for years, it is another rhythmic avalanche, a rush of the senses toward escape from this existence. It begins with an electro-dark base to enchant from the start. Then Kurtis pushes the sound of his guitar to a power that however restrained pollutes our little strength. And then the refrain brings us dancing darkness, leading to a part where everything becomes a clap of hands and hearts go up into the clouds to seek consolation. 

9 Grace Of God

Do you want the eternal enchantment that can make us lose control? Here it is! The atmosphere is rarefied in the verse, a drumming that shifts from syncopation to a four on the floor launches the song into the moment of the chorus where everything becomes sublime with the whirlwind of thoughts, making us lose our senses as we tremble. Keyboards are a subtle wound followed by guitars as polite splinters.

10 Here In The Hollow

The darkest jewel on the album, that purest diamond that overwhelms for its polite propensity to be almost pop while instead the words are hot blades, unbearable but resoundingly endowed with truth. The circular guitar is a tornado, the bass is sensual, drums are determined. But if we are careful we find ourselves in the dustbin of the universe, out of strength....

11 Secrets

Striking, resounding example of Aaron's love of the piano. And it is intimacy that advances in the making of our existences, with escapes and secrets forced to coexist. In the refrain drums become a hypnotic march and keyboards the grey in which to hide our mediocrity.

12 Know The Day Will Come

If the scribe wanted to die from the heartbreak of an unbearable present he would choose this track as his soundtrack. Devastatingly, by SRC's musical standards, the song is a farewell to any sort of connection with breath: for the melody, the intersections of guitars, the synths imbued with the rottenest sadness, and Aaron's vocals-lyrics-interpretation trinomial are a bottle of black blood that will finally explode in the evocative refrain. 

Alex Dematteis

Musicshockworld

Salford

20th November 2022

https://open.spotify.com/album/0cb2jkeQT4GSoD8cddlTOF?si=Pr7d7q6rSOqBTRlUr6X-Uw

La mia Recensione: The Slow Readers Club - Cavalcade

The Slow Readers Club - Cavalcade

Non c’è niente da fare: davanti a ciò che è vitale non si sfugge, si rimane intrappolati, a volte anche dolcemente. Ed è un evento che conosce ciclicità, si ciba di sé per inondare i sensi in beata moltitudine. Abbiamo appuntamento raramente con tutto questo, forse con la musica cresce la percentuale di questa probabilità.

Nel 2015 fu pubblicato il secondo album della band nata a Salford: The Slow Readers Club che con Cavalcade aprirono le porte della notorietà e incominciarono a essere compresi e conseguentemente adorati. Il disco di esordio, omonimo, aveva già mostrato il loro valore, sebbene la band non fosse soddisfatta della produzione. Tracce magicamente tristi che facevano ballare con gli occhi incendiati di lacrime. Poi questo lavoro fece scoppiare il cuore supportato da singoli in grado di attirare l’attenzione e mettendoli sulla bocca di molti. La miscela musicale si spostò leggermente pur conservando segni evidenti che il genere elettro-dark calzava a pennello con le esigenze dei quattro ragazzi in cerca di canzoni perfette. Per farlo occorreva più dinamicità e una virata verso una maggiore integrazione tra gli strumenti. Accadde, dando così il via libera ad Aaron, che iniettava nella sua voce la coda di ogni pianto, per seminare la potenza in un’ugola votata alla immensità senza catene. E tutta la band fece un notevole passo avanti, con la maturità come conseguenza di un desiderio di fare della musica un motivo di esistenza totale: avvenne poco dopo, quando i quattro lasciarono le loro attività lavorative per vivere totalmente di questa passione.

Cavalcade è stato e sarà sempre il loro album della svolta, con il lascito di canzoni pregne di fascino e capaci di coinvolgere l’ascoltatore in un sentiero di luci e spine emotive che grattano la pelle del cuore, con i sensi a circondare i pensieri spesso con poco fiato, perché in grado di mostrare il vero volto soffocante della nostra esistenza. Ecco apparire la vita con le sue croci, una fede sempre più appesantita dal misticismo, i rapporti fatti di depressione, precipizi e vertigini che fanno tremare i polsi. Il passato, il presente e il futuro, uniti da catene che, attraverso i versi straordinari di Aaron Starkie, trovano modo di far sentire e di mettere in luce tutta la loro fragilità, trovano adeguamento con la musica che si ritrova ad essere appiccicata alle loro aspettative. Le dodici tracce evidenziano abilità e convinzioni, sono credibili e ci iniettano nella vita sottocutanea riflessioni e danze, connesse e sigillate per il futuro, con la certezza che non subiranno l’invecchiamento. Ci si commuove sempre, ci si sente coccolati dalla loro tenerezza dal triste sorriso, ci si sente attraversati da una saggezza che fa male, finendo per diventare succubi di atmosfere odoranti, attraverso chitarre ridondanti, tastiere dai loop accattivanti e una sezione ritmica dai brividi sull’aria tremante, per fare della nostra vita molto più che una colonna sonora. I Mancuniani, con il loro elettro-Dark oscuro, non si negano viaggi dentro gli anni 80, ma sentono il bisogno di rimanere ancorati alle sonorità moderne e creano una prospettiva nella quale tutto vada proiettato nel futuro, senza nostalgie ad appesantire l’insieme. Si avverte tutta l’energia, l’esuberanza che diventa un pregio, la malinconia come un dovere, per fare delle canzoni piloti di sogni e constatazioni che rivelano anche il bisogno di creare nuovi confini, pensieri e stili musicali. Tutto è solenne, greve, frustrante in modo piacevole, deduttivo e devastante al contempo, come se la parte divertente degli Human League, dei Soft Cell, potesse abbracciare la cupa dinamica dei Joy Division, in un matrimonio artistico che non lascia dubbi riguardo il talento e le abilità che cresceranno sicuramente. Canzoni come recipienti, come granelli freschi nella terra vogliosa di inseminazioni continue e potenti. Abbiamo sempre la certezza che la vita e la morte nelle canzoni troveranno un abbraccio che potrà sconvolgere, perché immerse in quella malinconia che nessuno potrà negare essere il comune denominatore di ogni esistenza. Composizioni che danno l’impressione di trovare modo, nella dimensione dal vivo, di non avere vincoli di sviluppo nei suoni, di lasciare spazio a piccoli sconvolgimenti, e avverrà puntualmente. Alcune di loro surclassano le altre: parrebbe un giudizio negativo, in realtà conferma un livello molto alto, rendendo possibile affezionarsi a quelle che hanno una presa immediata. Sta qui il valore dell’album: quella che sembra la sua inferiorità più devastante si concretizza in quelle canzoni che, apparentemente, paiono inferiori, meno incisive. Saranno proprio quelle a catturarvi del tutto. Preceduto da quattro singoli (Forever In Your Debt, I Saw A Ghost, Start Again, Don’t Mind) e con un quinto dopo l’uscita (Plant The Seed), le altre sette composizioni sono anch’esse potenzialmente capaci di essere ipotetici singoli, mostrando di essere di facile preda dell’ascolto, con la volontà di scrivere brani che sanno arrivare al cuore senza esitazioni. 

Jim Glennie, bassista dei James, capì il loro potenziale e invitò la band a far loro da supporto, finendo per dare ai quattro ragazzi la giusta visibilità, che li portò a un successo inevitabile.

È l’album che cambiò il destino, mostrando che le loro carte avevano la forza per entrare nell’accoglienza con gli occhi verso il futuro, la firma della constatazione che la loro bellezza avrebbe creato nuovi seguaci. 

Qualcosa di morboso e morbido penetra la nostra anima, inevitabile, visto che i brani sono organismi di natura psichedelica, perché ci trasportano dalla dimensione subconscia a quella terrestre: si ha sempre l’impressione di un viaggio verso il mistero che viene svelato solo in parte. I giochi delle melodie hanno pennellate vistose di grigio, i ritmi svegliano gli slanci del corpo per gettarlo nell’enfasi più sublime e coinvolgente, con i testi che svettano per il desiderio di farci interrogare, mentre le lacrime vivono di corse e rallentamenti efficaci, prensili, destinati a incollarsi nella mente, che si fa generosa nell’ospitarli, seppur capaci di ammazzare spesso la fiducia nell’uomo. Ed è questa sincerità che li rende irresistibili.

Le chitarre sono ganci, tremori, vibrazioni dai molti echi, fratelli maggiori dei nostri sogni. Il basso, spina grassa sui nostri respiri, si avviluppa continuamente ai nostri pensieri, per sbatterli per terra, con seduzione e abilità. Il drumming è preciso, senza velleità di megalomania, e non per difetto tecnico: è semplicemente perfetto per non privarci di danze necessarie. Le tastiere sono sirene dalle unghie sornione, sottili, capaci però di entrare nei piani bassi del nostro umore, per farlo piangere con graffi maestosi.

La voce? Occorrerebbe scrivere un libro: non basterebbe. Aaron è il maestro di tonalità, di modalità espressive che fanno vibrare l’anima, immergendola nel buio di ogni respiro, rendendo sacra ogni sua nota. La dipendenza diventa estasi e non si può che lacrimare, perlomeno commuoversi, perché quella campana sensoriale è la vibrazione di un’emozione che vuole essere vissuta.

Sapete, sì, e benissimo, che è tempo di conoscere da vicino questi dodici lampi, con la speranza che nulla si opponga al vostro innamoramento totale.

Song by Song 

1 Start Again

Non dimenticate mai di stare attenti ai testi di ogni canzone.

Il fluido magnetico della opening track è affidato a un basso che pressa, non molla la presa. Seguito da due chitarre che saldano il tutto con fluida propensione al sogno e a sintetizzatori fluorescenti.

2 I Saw A Ghost

Bang! Si entra nella storia di una persona incapace di uscire dalla depressione con un brano perfetto: spazia in un vortice continuo nella testa con strofe in cui il cantato struggente di Aaron devasta. In più la chitarra è un’onda malinconica che rende quadrati i sensi, con il basso che scalda la pelle al contempo. Il ritornello diventa la foresta nera di ogni prigione mentale. 

3 Forever In Your Debt

Accompagnato da un video che immalinconisce, la canzone dimostra la classe dei Mancuniani che non abbisognano di cambi per esplodere nella nostra rapace volontà di essere sedotti da cotanta peccaminosa tristezza. Il basso e la grancassa aprono le danze e poi Aaron si prende i nostri cuori sino a quando Kurtis non diventa il mago della sollecitazione ritmica-melodica che troverà nel ritornello tutta la polvere che circonda la solitudine del protagonista del brano. 

4 Plant The Seed

Si vola, si cade, si fluttua negli 80’s ma con la curiosità degli anni attuali per una canzone che vede nel ritornello piazzato subito all’inizio i due fratelli al canto. Con un synth elegante e quasi segregato dalle chitarre e dal basso voluttuoso, si riesce a divenire un corpo sognante in volo, con quattro decadi a benedire lo splendore di questa creazione.

5 Days Like This Will Break Your Heart

Si prova un’emozione vibrante con questa voce che massacra ogni resistenza, nella cupa e intrigante dimostrazione che i quattro sono uragani di sentimenti nobili, in quanto sono destinati a graffiare ogni nostra ferita, ulteriormente. Irresistibile show di fantasie caduche e fotografie che stabiliscono la solitudine.

6 Don’t Mind

Ed è l’amore che vince: brano dedicato alla sposa del cantante e che vede le atmosfere prendere luce in un viatico pop e sognante dominato dalla voce di Aaron e dal binomio tastiera e chitarra, perché ci conducono a un attimo di serenità. Con un delizioso falsetto che ci avvolge poeticamente.

7 Cavalcade

Una chitarra che cavalca tra echi eleganti fa da cornice a un testo che paralizza per intensità e che vede il brano crescere ancora di più quando tutta la sezione ritmica manifesta la sua potente drammaticità. Le lacrime camminano sul cuore finendo per toccare tutto dentro, perché si rotola in una danza roboante. E a questa voce occorrerebbe conferire un premio all’incanto.

8 Fool For Your Philosophy

Canzone presente da anni nei loro Live set, è un’altra valanga ritmica, una corsa dei sensi verso la fuga da questa esistenza. Inizia con una base elettro dark per incantare sin da subito. Poi Kurtis spinge il suono della sua chitarra verso una potenza che per quanto contenuta inquina le nostre poche forze. E poi il ritornello ci porta il buio danzante, per giungere a una parte in cui tutto si fa battito di mani e i cuori salgono tra le nuvole a cercare consolazione. 

9 Grace Of God

Volete l’incanto eterno che sappia farci perdere il controllo? Eccolo! L’atmosfera è rarefatta nella strofa, un drumming che passa dal sincopato al quattro quarti lancia la canzone nel momento del ritornello in cui tutto si fa sublime con il turbinio dei pensieri, facendoci perdere i sensi mentre si trema. La tastiera è una ferita sottile che viene seguita da chitarre come schegge educate.

10 Here In The Hollow

Il gioiello più buio dell’album, quel diamante più puro che travolge per la sua educata propensione a essere quasi pop mentre invece le parole sono lame calde, insostenibili ma clamorosamente dotate di verità. È un tornado la chitarra circolare, è sensuale il basso, è determinata la batteria. Ma se si è attenti ci ritroviamo nel cestino dell’universo, senza più forze…

11 Secrets

Spiazzante, clamoroso esempio dell’amore di Aaron per il pianoforte. Ed è l’intimità che avanza nel fare delle nostre esistenze, con fughe e segreti costretti alla convivenza. Nel ritornello la batteria diventa una marcia ipnotica e la tastiera il grigio in cui nascondere le nostre mediocrità.

12 Know The Day Will Come

Se lo scriba volesse morire per lo struggimento di un presente insostenibile sceglierebbe questo brano come colonna sonora. Devastante, per i canoni musicali degli SRC, il brano è un addio a ogni sorta di legame con il respiro: per la melodia, gli incroci delle chitarre, i synth pregni della tristezza più marcia e il trinomio voce-testo-interpretazione di Aaron sono una bottiglia di sangue nero che esploderanno definitivamente nel ritornello evocativo. 

Alex Dematteis

Musicshockworld

Salford

20 Novembre 2022

https://open.spotify.com/album/0cb2jkeQT4GSoD8cddlTOF?si=Pr7d7q6rSOqBTRlUr6X-Uw

My Review: James - All The Colours Of You

James - All the colours of you

There was a time when we could see them in the meadows, in the parks of a smiling, tired but never speechless Manchester.

Now they fly overhead, all we have to do is raise our heads and thousands of daisies offer us their petals as rays of much-needed energy so we can have at least one romantic reason not to give up. Some of them are still all together: their name is James and they are also the stars that light up the city night and day.

They are back to let us hear their new flow of skill and melodies that become our new strength.

A resounding comeback for how they managed to live through the pandemic period, giving us songs that can be an incentive towards the comfortable willingness to give in.

They have put in place eleven butterflies to play the game that they will clearly win: on their side they have the class, the technique, the strategy, all aimed at scoring goals in our heart.

Jim and Mark are the main songwriters, but all the daisies have played their petals in creating a flock of butterflies that gently glide to stay. They certainly won't leave. Tim proves himself, as always, to be the sovereign God of writing with lyrics that range and delve into themes that would be suitable for rhetoric (which, by the way, also has positive aspects), not indulging, as always, in simple and above all banal composition. No: he is the striker who is able to surprise, he does not need dribbling to jump into the net of our hearts ready to take goals, because it has never been so wonderful to see the net swell.

In the end they are eleven goals that make you realise just how much James are constantly growing.

After 39 years since their formation they are as fresh as ever.

Sixteenth album and certainly this one proves to be courageous and determined, granting itself the pleasure of a conception that started in a simple way and was gradually able to create articulated and complex structures, without giving up showing the band's unmistakable style.

And having worked with a producer like Jacknife Lee has made their creative musk even more fertile and fragrant.

Tim's lyrical choices address current issues, modern imbalances, the pandemic (here considered in a completely different way than on albums that have been and are being released), relationships increasingly unable to uphold certain values and the absence of communication able to convey positive messages. 

An album so rich and surprising that it might shock a lot of their followers: time will be kind and teach them that among these grooves there is the whole essence of the band reaching levels never touched before. They have matured so much that patience will almost certainly be required before you run the risk of  getting a terrific crush.

It only remains for me to let you smell the scent of these daisies: make yourselves comfortable so that you can long for them to dwell inside you…

Zero

Tim's favourite song opens the album, the one with the most extreme length, a track as powerful as ever to introduce us to their new work. It surprises from the beginning with its structure and variations, stimulates curiosity as it becomes morbid and it is swaggering, rich, remarkable in its showing those muscles that do not just lie on the surface. The lyrics start with a brutal truth and then find, as always with Tim, the way to let the sunshine in and leave us breathless with the beauty of what we have listened to. He first invites us to leave some impediments behind, helps us to break free. Simply a crazy way to start this adventure among the colours.  The first Daisy has already stunned us. 

All The Colours of You

George Floyd and President Trump's disastrous administration. Tim denounces and does so with his unmatched class.

This song has led many people astray: it is historicised that it is difficult for many to understand much of an album, let alone an entire career where several compositions have seen Tim writing about the social situation since their first work. Many have turned up their nose, criticizing him. Not understanding the wide margin in which his writing has moved. Undoubtedly Trump's ears must be ringing! A song that in addition to being almost an invective contains a positive message in reminding us that colours are still fundamental. It moves elegantly over an electronic carpet, an enveloping, modern rhythm, a bass that is lymph, keyboards that simple and modern lead us into their arms, vocals that are steeped in medium harsh tones to the point of unexpected sensuality and Andy's trumpet which makes us fly over all the colours.

Recover 

A touching song, Tim opens his heart to talk about the death of Covid of his wife's father: yet another life lesson in how one should live through a mournful moment.  The music is a hinted caress on which the singer, with ease and delicacy, manages to transform a tear into a feather. The bass surrounds, the simple keyboards sink in, like a high and finally free breath.

Beautiful Beaches

How to turn an escape caused by the usual fires in the area where he lives near Los Angeles into a joyful dance: Tim can do it!

Electronic drums and keyboards dominate in a track that has its strong point in the pre-chorus and in the chorus itself, until the final, perhaps difficult, drumming that seems to surround the area where he has moved to protect it. A track with success already assured in the next live shows. The band here benefits, as for the rest of the album to tell the truth, from Jacknife Lee's production, skillful in giving power and compactness to a melody that is sublime in its lightness.

Wherever It Takes Us

A dream: a girl committed to defending rights that are not just her own risks death in a wild ride. The song shows how verse and refrain can be so far apart. But the refrain, full of voices and melodic propensity to embrace all fears, becomes one of the most beautiful ever for this band, which in the song demonstrates all its ability to range and captivate in phases distant from each other.

Hush

Here comes a ghost, in this tense story, softened however by a rhythm that here finds slowness, while the melody brings back some of the typical James sound that many will surely not struggle to recognise. The track, like the story told by tender Tim, crosses the swamp of fear to leave us with the gift of mystery. When James are light, despite a nightmare told with class, their music knows how to prove that it is in simplicity that songs become eternal.

Miss America 

While remaining in the zone of a music that has slowed its pace, here the story changes, the American dream is destroyed by the dream of a girl, a model, who, while trying to win the beauty contest, realises the weaknesses of a system doomed to collapse. Tender, a few notes, but incisive, here the band succeeds as always in not needing all its many members to convey the sense of chorus. Another track that will manage to warm the heart. 

Getting Myself 

How to turn a piano riff into a hit, starting with a breath and ending with a cough that will make us all happy singers. A sure hit that will put a smile on our faces. A song that clearly explains the mood of the album, in music and lyrics. When perfection does not exist it is put at risk by these inspired and fearless 60-year-olds. The last 20 years of their career summed up in one track, you will see the magic in your ears hungry for beauty.

Magic Bus

Tim seems to have taken some acid to bring us into the great textures of a lively song in its disguised psychedelia.

But he didn't take it, making this lyrics even more special....

It is a tribal, haunting and sensual journey that nails and defeats us, as only the great artists know how to do, the descriptive banality of a path where drug-taking would have made it run the risk of becoming banal and similar to thousands of other songs. Curious lyrics and an equally curious music seem to perfectly make James masters in disguising papers and identities. 

Isabella

Another story of mystery and violence quickly enters the album: the protagonist arrives and shocks, throws her revenge and then rises up to find distance from her sin. Tim's interpretative imagination allows him to take full advantage of the song's changes of rhythm, which finds its majesty in the refrain. Then the two female backing vocalists lift us up with their simple but centred singing. We reach the end, between guitars and compact keyboards, Tim finds a second refrain to sink us again, waiting for the autopsy...

XYST 

We are at the end of the album: when political power would like to shut the mouths of musicians' consciences. A stunning track that concludes this work by giving us new, lucid, elegant James, capable of being adults with a young heart. The last composition is the ending I was expecting, a new surprise that fascinates and drags us into the depths of a new awareness: every song on this sixteenth album has the strange virtue of being untied but at the same time connected to all the others, there is always a mystery, a surprise that appears within the instruments. Here, too, there is no doubt whatsoever: things end well, with class, the chance has been taken to give the world the eleventh song on this palette of colours and daisies, they played  offense and won big.

Undoubtedly their best album of this millennium and among my top three of all time. Because James in 1982, just before they were the band that opened the Haçienda in my beloved Manchester, in their small, trembling dressing rooms, signed a pact with the devil: time will not bend their beauty and in time they will be able to bring all the colours of the world into your now grey beats.

I'd say that pact magically endures, and now please count these petals, rewind the craving for beauty and dive back in here, since in the meantime the palette is ready: a new round of colours for our flushed smiles...

The album will be on sale from tomorrow, 4 June 2021

Alex Dematteis 

Salford

3 June 2021

James:

Tim Booth

Lyrics, vocals, percussion, backing vocals

Jim Glennie

Bassist, percussion

Saul Davies

Guitarist, violinist, percussion, backing vocals

Mark Hunter

Keyboards, Piano, Percussion, Programming 

David Baynton-Power

Drums, percussion

Andy Diagram

Trumpet, backing vocals, percussion

Adrian Oxaal

Guitar, choirs, cello 

Chloë Alper

Choirs, percussion 

Knox-Hewson Debbie 

Choirs, percussion

https://open.spotify.com/album/5ygHCOppc7ipeiWCB8cj9M?si=1VRBmb2QTIet3r4fQkCmgQ

My collection of the album: