Afterhours
My Bit Boy

Talking about Afterhours now, with their inter, extra, and super European successes, seems almost easy. Whether you like them or not, whether Manuel comes across as odious, lovable, loquacious, or cryptic is of little importance. The origins of Afterhours have been retraced in a double DVD released in 2007, which represents a significant piece to understand the band.

There we can see them beardless, covered in the eighties from head to toe, stunned by lots and lots of listening to Joy Division. It's true, in “Pop Kills Your Soul,” 1993, Manuel’s English pronunciation is atrocious, but do we really care that much? Since when does an Italian band need a TOEFL certificate to sing in English?

It’s precisely the earliest works that contain in embryonic form the skill of the band that will then explode in the subsequent albums. 1987, “My Bit Boy”, a simple EP released as a 45 RPM vinyl, recorded so amateurishly that it suspects it was recorded in Manuel’s garage or basement. Composed of two tracks that even rhyme with each other, “My Bit Boy” and “To Win Or To Distroy”.

The group continues to record, and a year later, in 1988, comes “All the Good Children Go to Hell”; the sounds aren’t defined, the recording is rough. The cover is an eloquent nod to Joy Division’s and Television’s melancholy. The four of the then lineup, leaning against the wall, their gazes lost in the void. Among the six tracks divided on the two sides of the LP, nestles a remarkable “Green River,” a Creedence cover, where Afterhours demonstrate their ability to reinterpret such a classic piece of the rock scene.

However, it is in 1990 with their participation in a Joy Division tribute compilation that the group churns out an unparalleled cover of “Shadowplay.” Acoustic version, guitar and voice. The original rhythm is distorted, and the song's dark and introspective part is eviscerated; stripped of the new wave aura, there remains a memorable piece that significantly enhances the textual component. Following is “During Christine’s Sleep,” 1990, an almost forgotten album but perhaps the first containing an Afterhours “personality.” Manuel’s voice sometimes fades behind arrangements and percussion, but it does not lose effectiveness on the interpretive side. This is the album you need to recover to listen to the five minutes and forty-five seconds that will generate “Dentro Marilyn” from “Germi.”

The album is followed a year later by “Cocaine Head” where the sounds become more refined as well as the arrangements that embrace the path of experimentation. First work featuring Giorgio Prette on drums who makes his presence felt, especially in the chorus of the King Crimson cover “21st Century Schizoid Man.” And finally, here it is, “Pop Kills Your Soul,” or in many ways, the mirror of “Germi.” The album opens with what will be the twelfth track of “Germi.” The album is marked by the fortuitous entrance of guitarist Xabier Iriondo, who gives Afterhours a new, much more decisive sound while at the same time open to digressions and improvisations as a source of artistic inspiration for the band. Fully respecting the title, yet another cover is included among the tracks, this time drawn from the Bee Gees’ repertoire, it’s “On Time,” a song reread in a rock key but which hints at some fun pop-style traits. With “Pop Kills Your Soul,” the era of albums sung in English concludes, and in certain respects, we’re happier this way because “sole bastardo marcisci su di me” sounds better in Italian... Afterhours have unveiled an idea: that for more than twenty years in Italy, you can make a living by making music. They didn’t say this would be easy or long-lasting, they didn’t nurture false hopes, but they broke through. They produced, organized festivals, discovered talents, inspired others. To this day, cohabiting, fathers, lovers, they still take the stage. The faces have changed, new members have come and gone: Xabier leaves, Ciccarelli enters, Dario Ciffo leaves, Rodrigo D’Erasmo enters, Andrea Viti leaves, Dall’Era enters and seems to be staying. The group members have carried on some parallel projects (from “Atletico Delfina” to “Lombroso”) and have gotten followed to stages and festivals in and out of Italy. Afterhours deserve credit for a musical foresight and transversal interpretative capacity that crosses genres by experimenting with them in various forms. Comparable to the turning point in the music scene like CCCP's “Emilia Paranoia,” and everything that followed. And in the meantime, we await the new album.