| CD REVIEW Alkemyst Fanatix/ UK Division special #2 : Absinthe - Adimiron - Anderson - Everglade - Fudosatellite |
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Alkemyst Fanatix/ UK Division special #2 You may remember from the previous Alkemist Fanatix special that I’d decided to review the rest of the batch of albums the promotion agency had sent us according to their catalog number? Well, while cheecking out info for the first albums, I came upon a list of UK Division releases for Spring and Summer 2009, and would you know…the catalog numbers have nothing at all to do with the chronology of the release schedule, so I thought I’d just do things alfabetically anyway! The 5 bands we’re dealing with in this second special include Absinthe (from Milano), Adimiron (Rome), Anderson (believe it or not, from Exeter, Devon, UK), Everglade (the most Southern living band, from a little town by the Adriatic Sea), and Fudosatellite (from Arezzo, 200 kms above Rome, in the middle of the country). -------------------------------------------- This Milan based Italian outfit was founded in January 2006 by former Blizzard member Stefano Zuccula (lead guitar) and Riccardo Lazzari (bass) with the idea to play a bombastic and melodic hybrid of Hard Rock with Blues and Pop, with melodic female vocals. Shortly after the founding duo were joined by rhythm guitarist/ backing singer Andrea Costantini (of Rosko’s), drummer Mauro Mengotto, and singer Sara Frusciante. Thus far, so good, as they were realizing their visions. Frequently playing the better clubs in Northern Italy, the band gets quite a good reputation and when they released their self-titled, self-financed EP in 2007, the response is equally positive, even outside Italy. The track “Fallin’ Down” is released as a single and aired through several Italian radio stations, but also on Canadian Radio Propagande and the American DW Radio. The song is then chosen as part of a campaign against child pornography by the Rock Against Child Pornography organisation. In early 2008 the band records a mini live unplugged for Dammispazio.com to positive response, and in March they again enter the Tizano9 Studios to record this full-length’s 13 tracks (2 of which are bonuses). A couple of months later, the band signs onto the Alkemist Fanatix roster, which leads to a record deal with British label UK Division Records. Still, with the band presenting their album to their audiences from late July 2008 on, it would take until late April 2009 before the Italian fans could buy the album. Elsewhere people had to wait until June 1st to order the album from on-line digital stores, and the physical album was released only on November. Which brings me to the music at hand…and I’m afraid I’m none too enthoused by what I got to hear, but that has more to do with my personal aversion for commerciality than anything else. Well, not quite completely! You see, while the music is slick enough to appeal to a wide variety of people into (Hard) Rock, there still is the somewhat…dare I say boring?…perhaps, unimmaginative, unchanging, with a slight but constant whine is even better…quality of Sara’s vocals is simply stereo-typical of the kind of female singing that usually gets slandered by music journalists. At any rate, her singing brings down the rest to a level below average!!! In all fairness, the band tries to make things as varied as possible, with Costantini adding the sounds of keyboards and a lone harmonica to the songs, making Sara sing “Domani” in their native language (not that it makes any difference, because the whine is still there), occasionally going for a more “ballad” geared track (regrettably, that whine again persists), or teaming Sara up with a male singer for a duet (at least the whine is less dominant here). In the bonus tracks, the band proves that their music càn be beautiful overall, including vocally, by replacing Sara by a Lady Marty for a duet with Dave Fassio in the Italian song “Limpido”. Second bonus track “Guardami Bruciare” is really an Italian version of album track “Watch Me Burn”. By the way, the aforementioned “Fallin’ Down” is also featured on the album! In their waiting to the release of the album, the band has undergone a couple of changes. For starters, in September 2009 it was decided that drummer Mauro Mengotto (for some reason he didn’t even play on the album, and his job would be done by Matteo Costantini – a relation, perhaps?) was to be replaced by new man Riccardo Boccassini (formerly of H.O.A.P.). Then, Andrea Costantini was moved to the keyboards on a permanent basis, his role as rhythm guitarist taken over by former Simple Choice axeman Matteo Benzoni. Eventually (and seen my previous criticism of the band this is the most important bit of nnews to me) the band also replaced Sara for new female singer Luciana “Lucky” Fabris in October. And I’m guessing that in the meantime the keyboardist has also left the band, because he’s not listed as one of the musicians at myspace.com/absinthemilan, where you can also listen to 3 songs off the album (not that single though, weirdly enough). The band has also announced that they have been in the studio to work on a threesome of new tracks, to be released as an EP during this very Summer. Now thàt is something I’m looking forward to! Rating below goes for THIS album, evidently. 70/100 -------------------------------------------- Wow, wake-up call! After being lulled into somewhat of a light headache by the vocal prowesses of the above mentioned band, Adimiron brings a shot of welcome adrenaline to straighten everything out again! Founded in 1999 as a pure Thrash Metal act, Rome based Adimiron went through 2 demos and a 30-gig Italian tour in 2003 before signing with Dutch label Karmageddon Music for the early 2004 release of its debut album Burning Souls. Thanks to the album’s international distribution and promotion (it is licenced to the USA and even included in the Japanese Hidden Maniacs ’04 collector series) the albums sells well all over Europe, and the hightened media attention allows the band to do a promotional tour supporting many known bands of the scene. Following the Burning European Tour, the band retreats to the studio where they record the 3-track EP WFTNA…which is never released officially as the band’s label then files for bankrupsy! As a result, no less than 3 original members leave the band, and it took Adimiron more than a year of inactivity (well, in the meantime there was of course auditions, rehearsals) to fill in the gaps and become an active band on the Italian scene again. The new line-up comes up with new 3-track EP Choose A New Direction in 2006, the title hinting to the band’s directional change from a pure Thrash band towards fusing that with a Progressive Death Metal. During the first two months of 2008 the guys (by the way, a little introduction is at hand, won’t you agree? So you’ve got Andrea Spinelli on the vocal chords, Alessandro Castelli and Danilo Valentini playing the 6-string axes, Maurizio Villeato taking care of the low-end frequencies, and Federico Maragoni bashing the skins) locked themselves and engineer/ co-producer Luigi Stefanini up in the New Sin Studios at Loria (TV), and came out with a full-length album which brings a further development in the band’s sound. Then followed the harduous search for the correct partners to get the album out there in the world, and eventually the band allied with Alkemist Fanatix, their ties in the music business asuring the Italian distribution of the album through Andromeda Distribuzioni, and in the rest of Europe through UK Division Records. Admittingly it took some time to see its way to our little country and website, but here we are today, right? The band itself describes their new sound as “…something different, more aggressive, modern and concrete: the new face of Adimiron…”. In more illuminating words, the band brings a brutal yet catchy down-tuned Metal with Avant-Garde elements, and is not afraid to occasionally experiment a little. Besides bringing a great version of the Prodigy’s “Spitfire” (released recently on a limited 500-copy rotation on 7-inch vinyl, with album track “Choice For A Mask” as b-side), the boys also come along with two acoustic instrumentals (the first being the album’s title track, the second a hidden track following some “static” after the album’s closing song “Flag Of Sinners”) in which additional wacky sounds are incorporated (something with electronic drums and weird effects on electric guitar in the background – you’ll find stuff like that in the album’s calmer passages). Vocally, the singer semi-moans, screams, shouts, groans, and frequently sings his way through the lyrics in a very positive way which doesn’t even have an inkling of accent due to his native origins (a slight defect otherwize somewhat common among bands from the Mediterranean). With the album now out slightly more than a year (how time flies!), the band of course already got plenty of praise from plenty of magazines and webzines, and if you’d like to know more about that I suggest you check myspace.com/adimironcrew, which is also where you can check a total of 5 songs (3 off the album) for a taster of this band’s music! 92/100 -------------------------------------------- Hey, a British band on UK Division Records…what a change! I’ve no idea whatsoever about when this band (not to be confused with the Dutch Indie/ Acoustic/ Electronica duo by the same name, who’ve probably even had records out before this Exeter based British band existed) came about, as that info is simply lacking. What I dó know is that at the band (then consisting of lead singer/ guitarist Stu Toms, backing singer/ bassist Ollie Chanter, and bassist Lucy Piper) got an invite from this Italian agency to send them some music, at a moment when Stu was having a short break from the band for an Australian vacation. At that time the band had at least two self-financed demo EP’s out (titled Last Autumn and Shelter). Of course the band replied in kind, sent the agency some demo tracks and info, and soon after got a mail back including a contract to come and record in Italy. Wow, so off to Italy the trio goes, and finds out they get exactly a month in the studio to record the six songs they had in mind. Would be more than enough for any normal band, but this trio is somewhat of a perfectionist band, see, and therefore the month in Italy was everything but a pleasure trip…in stead it was hard work from start to finish! Still, the result is a real fine mini-album (total length just under 27 minutes) with music which might be categorized as a Post Pop Punk mixture of Rock with a touch of Punk, a good deal of melancholic Emo, and a pinch of Ambient. I’ll admit it took some time for me to really get into this (I’m not usually into Emo-like stuff), but a 2-hour session of repeat listening while I was reading a detective book did the trick! I also understand why the band is now a 4-piece band with the addition of rhythm guitarist/ backing singer Ben Chanter (keep it in the family, boys!). I mean, the material really needed that if it was gonna be re-created in live conditions! At myspace.com/andersonband, you’ll find 2 representative songs off the EP (pity they didn’t add the instrumental “Seven” too, though) and a demo version of new song “December”. At purevolume.com/anderson, you’ll find a couple of older songs (one an older version of the track “Shelter” on the mini-album, and if you could hear the difference you would be amazed at the positive evolution the trio, then with another drummer, went through). Yeah, after the release of their EP the band was put on a tour of Italy which saw them travel from the South to the North and back with all kinds of means (vans, trains, planes), had themselves all kinds of adventures (playing before impressive crowds, being broken into, losing money, getting too drunk, signing CDs for enthoused fans,…), and were even interviewed for BBC Radio. Early this year the band started writing new songs. The band already had some demo recording sessions in February, and did the same last month (June by the time you read this) in preparation of recording sessions for their debut full-length. No news yet when that’ll be recorded, but I’m already looking forward to the results! To be followed, for sure! 86/100 -------------------------------------------- From the smal coastal (by the Adriatic Sea) townlet Palude near the Lago Di Farano (some 30 kms North of Manfredonia) in Mid-Italy, and taking its name from the place where the 4 original members had their home studio, Everglade was formed in 2003 as an evolution from an earlier project. Not very much after the official formation the band was playing shows with a set including some original songs (which would soon become the core of their live appearances) and a majority of covers from Alice In Chains and Pearl Jam (sounds good thus far, don’t it?). At the end of 2005 the band (comprised of singer Matteo Panin, guitarist Silvio Maestri, bassist Mattia Baratto and drummer Luca Boscarato) travels up North in Italy (to Rovigo, near Venice) to record a 6-track demo at New Frontiers Recording Studio with Ugo Bolzoni (ex-Sony), the songs of which they promote live to positive response during the complete year of 2006. At that point new guitarist Alessandro Pomaro enters the fold and as a result not only were new songs written (texts even revised for language mistakes by a friend of the band), but also the older ones improved. During January 2007 all the new songs were recorded to demo in order to weed out the weak points in order to improve the songs…and in March and April the band (with the inclusion of Pomaro, who is now no longer with the band) again travels to Bolzoni’s studio to record the 9 songs that were to become the band’s official debut full-length (after mixing & mastering by Bolzoni from July to September). We won’t go into the detail of when and how the band got in contact with Alkemist Fanatix (and thus got their distribution deal for the album through UK Division)…because we simply lack that info, and can therefore pass onto the job of checking the band’s music. At myspace.com/evergladeband, you’ll find the band describing their music as “Seattle Sound (Pearl Jam, Soundgarden) plus Kyuss and a little Stoner & Alternative Rock”, but when you’ll listen to the song samples (of àll album tracks) you’ll quickly discover that the description is mainly name dropping! I mean, the band may well listen to those bands quite frequently, and even feel “influenced” by ‘em, but the outcome is somewhat removed from it. A little Alternative Rock & Stoner? Yeah, that woùld be right! One problem which will prevent this band from ever making it outside the Mediterranean in any big way, and I’m sure you’ll agree with me, is the fact that the the person who revised the band’s lyrics made a couple of striking mistakes. Which wouldn’t be sa bad, if it wasn’t for the fact that the singer’s English ain’t too fluent either…and even after listening to the slightest bit of lyrics one immediately thinks “Italian Band?”, purely on the basis of the singer’s accent! Which is too bad really, because the music itself ain’t half that bad…sorry, make that: is quite alright…with plenty of slower moments in between somewhat more energetic Hard Rock passages (let’s not exagerate the heavieness though) with that mid-‘90s Seattle touch. 78/100 -------------------------------------------- From Arezzo (200 kms above Rome in the middle of the country, roughly between Perugia and Firenze), this Italian Stoner Rock/ Metal quartet finds its origins in the band The Sleepers, founded in 2004 by singer/ guitarist Gabriele and guitarist/ backing singer Giacomo. After a couple of months bassist Tommaso and drummer Luca complete the line-up and the band starts playing gigs all over the Tuscany region in order to promote an early demo. Gradually, the sound of their music became more dramatic with a dark touch, something which set ‘em aside as an innovative alternative band. In late 2007 the band, finding out there’s an established American outfit sporting their name, change their name to Fudosatellite. Soon after the band signs to British label UK Division Records, and in May they record their album at Pisa’s West Link studios. The Alessandro Paolucci co-produced album eventually takes just under a year to be released. And a year further on, we finally got the album for review. Weirdly enough, several Italian webzines only brought their reviews earlier this year. To find out whether you like this band, or not, it suffices to surf on over to myspace.com/fudosatellite, where the guys posted all 10 tracks off their album. Be sure to listen to “23” with its sampled content (first time I heard that much of Neil Armstrong’s speech leading up to the legendary sentence “That’s one small step for a man, a giant leap for mankind”, when he aas the first of mankind set foot on the surface of the moon). For me personally, Primitive was definitely the highlight of this special. 93/100 That’s it for this time around. Before the end of the week (well, most probably you’ll see all of this being posted at the same time, somewhere early in July – the editor-in-chief is far too busy at this time running around festivals to please a lot of bands at the same time, to do very much for the website) you can expect the closing (at least for the moment) special around the Alkemist Fanatix Europe bands. As far as I’m concerned, I’ll welcome a new package with open arms, heart, and mind! Tony. |
