Bedtime For Charlie
Morningwood

THE REVIEW

Let's say that I don't follow the genre as assiduously as I used to, yet it's summer, it's thirty degrees, and shutting myself in a room with the heat and the ever-present daylight is not ideal for properly listening to the latest Agalloch or Katatonia album. Therefore, I need something new to engage my ears that complements the weather.

I find these Bedtime For Charlie, they're from Rome. The name isn't new to me, but I had never listened to them. “Morningwood” is the latest EP released thanks to the collaboration between No Reason Records and No Panic! Records, and that doesn't surprise me at all. Their previous discography includes two other albums and several tours around the beautiful country and Europe.

You can hear the Cali-punk influences, but the drumming of the new member Jai Fournier (ex To Kill) never adopts excessively frantic patterns, the melodies prevail and could be compared to those of Lagwagon or, to look at Italy, to the defunct Jet Market.

The short work flows well, aided by its brief duration, highlighting “Come and Go” which favors medium rhythms but includes remarkable choruses, not forgetting the opening track “Snapshot” and “Fallen” where they step on the accelerator a bit more.

The trends go elsewhere, and it can't be said that there's a wide audience ready to welcome Bedtime For Charlie, who nevertheless try to bring home the bacon and keep the torch of melodic Italian hc lit.

And then, are we sure that the much more publicized latest album from Rise Against is really worth more?