There can’t be many grunge songs that have a …what is that….a double-strung balilika…an oud…a mini mando…at its core*. I guess that is why YACOVELLI uses tags like neo-grunge to describe what he does; even grunge music can have a second act in the musical play, given the right pair of hands. Alex Yacovelli and his sonic posse are unquestionably the right pair of hands. (Pairs of hands?)
As the guitars kick in, a sludgy, raw and intense riff leads the charge, salvos of six-string sonics are fired off above, below and beyond it; and grungy intensity, foot-on-the-monitor hard-nosed rock ‘n’ roll and a punk energy, albeit one that swaps pace for a sort of ragged and re-purposed poise, all fight for attention. The song teeters on the edge of chaos and psych-rock, savagery, and Desert rock stoner vibes, but so surefootedly that it never falls.
And with a video that shows the man himself magically traveling from the Liverpool balcony of The Hard Days Night Hotel to New York City’s Upper West Side, through all the elements, to keep a gig appointment, the song provides a suitably strange and sophisticated soundtrack to the visuals.
Anyone who thinks that grunge is now merely nostalgic music, stuck in a very precise place on the musical map, that it is all about backward glancing rather than forward thinking, YACOVELLI in general and “Since Emilia” particularly are here to set the record straight.
*Subsequent research (that is, re-reading the press release properly) reveals that the instrument in question is a Greek Baglama, but my point still stands.
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