Ahead of a full album, the brilliantly titled Tragicomic, which offers a set of songs that look at America through Greg Amici‘s unique absurdist lens and weaves together all manner of musical genres while doing so, he gives us “I’ll Be Back.”
The album recording sees Greg reuniting with producer James Mastro (The Bongos, Mott the Hoople, Ian Hunter) and engineer / drummer Ray Ketchem (Guided by Voices, Elk City, Gramercy Arms, Luna) at Magic Door Studio in Montclair, Mastering was undertaken by award-winning engineer Greg Calbi (John Lennon, David Bowie, Bruce Springsteen, Talking Heads, Patti Smith, Tom Petty). It also brought together former Amici bandmates Joe Gentile (Big Honey) and Tommy Aboussleman (Electric TNT), with special guests Tony Shanahan (Patti Smith Band) and Elk City’s Renee LoBue also contributing to the recording.
The first thing you notice about the track, the first thing I noticed at least, is his voice, one of those one-of-a-kind vocals that echos slightly with the sound of Stan Ridgeway singing “Mexican Radio,” and as we all know, those are the voices in music that people remember.
But musically, it is at the opposite end of the spectrum as that slice of iconic strangeness. It’s a song that creeps towards the listener on throbbing bass lines, slinky, seductive saxophones, shimmering shards of guitar, and dark atmospheres. Not so much less-is-more, rather less-can-be-genuinley-creepy-when-done-this-well.
And as the brass squalls and drums beat out a dark, frenzied tattoo, you realize this is a great song. Not only that, it makes you think, “If Greg Amici can make one song of four minutes sound like the complete soundtrack to the best horror movie ever made, what will he be able to do with a full, 12-track album.”
I can’t wait to find out. And I bet you can’t either.
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