Black Eyed Dog
Love is a Dog from Hell

A dog with black eyes says that love is a dog from hell. And in the end, a white cat ends up on the cover. It’s the strange case of Black Eyed Dog, a young Italian singer-songwriter who has traveled far and wide from Washington to Los Angeles, from London to Palermo (where he currently lives and works) and who debuts with the ineffable album titled "Love is a dog from Hell."

But let's go back to the artist's name, "Black Eyed Dog". Does it ring a bell? It's one of the most intense and introspective tracks by Nick Drake, apparently Fabio Parrinello, voice, guitar and piano, dedicates more than one piece to him. The influences of the more noble Albion songwriting (which also enjoy various American peculiarities) are not enough to break the claim hanging over this debut album, which the press lovingly indulges in with surreal comparisons. Big names like Tom Waits, Devendra Banhart or even Bright Eyes and Mark Lanegan are thrown around. (Are we serious?!). Federico Guglielmi, in the monthly Il Mucchio Selvaggio writes: « Black Eyed Dog is one of those solo artists who are a bit...special, as proven by a debut that ranges with a great balance of lightness and depth[...] the arpeggios, the piano inserts, the textures echo Bonnie Prince Billy, Calexico, Kurt Cobain in an exciting interplay of references »; or in Rumore it reads: « The language resonates, also because the music is dry, lean. We might almost call it desert-like, already from Masks & Needles, where the specter of Mark Lanegan appears ». Demanding praises that not even Wilco receives. Will it really deserve the "Fuori dal Mucchio" award?

Well, I don’t know.

The tracks are slow, thin, already heard, the folk and intimate charm of certain pieces (Careless, Lù and Me) redeem the album only halfway, and after a while, it no longer strikes a chord with the listener. There are no missing pieces from Five leaves left by Nick Drake or the impeccable arpeggios (No Name, Broken Wing) and the sharp and convincing tracks (Blue Eyed Girl, Cruising). Overall, there are twenty-nine minutes of pure ballads in which one struggles with one's debated, complicated musical personality, (by the way: which of the many attributed to him?). But a guitar, a perfect English pronunciation, and a couple of Tim Buckley CDs are not enough to improvise as a singer-songwriter.