Crippled Black Phoenix
I, Vigilante

The Crippled Black Phoenix never stop. After last year's monstrous double album and a tour that brought them back to Italy, this “I, Vigilante” sets new coordinates for a band that, apart from never stopping, has the characteristic of continuously transforming while remaining true to itself. Of the well-populated 'supergroup' that released the spectacular “A Love Of Shared Disasters” in 2006, only three remain: the two souls (Justin Greaves, guitar, and Joe Volk, vocals) and cellist Charlotte Nichols. The new travel companions, from the Naples-born transplanted in England Karl Demata (guitar) to former Alice Cooper roadie Chris Heilmann (bass), seem to have integrated into an organism that is now, more than a 'supergroup', a real band. And with a twist.

If there's one factor where “I, Vigilante” betrays the past of the crippled phoenix, it’s the lack of prolixity. Five tracks, 45 minutes. Very long tracks, indeed. Some even too long. But the whole is not as ponderous as previous albums. Paradoxically, by containing themselves, the Crippled Black Phoenix have gained a broader perspective and have taken advantage of it to become more muscular. When it comes to ‘endtime ballads’, the record contains only two, while the other tracks play on more heavy registers, like the cover “Of A Lifetime” (by Journey), adult rock from old pubs in the American provinces that is quite musty overall. Then there's the rather incongruous other hidden cover at the end of the record, with a sixties band and Beatles-like flavor (which is “Burning Bridges” by The Mike Curb Congregation, from the soundtrack of “Kelly's Heroes,” 1970, featuring Clint Eastwood).

Rougher with Pink Floyd echoes in “Troublemaker”, more frayed is “We Forgotten Who We Are”, which proceeds like a swing between sweet truces and typically post-rock peaks, with thicker layers of guitars compared to the past (however, the ‘angelic’ choirs at the end of the track are unbearable).

There's little to do, though. I continue to prefer the Crippled when they delve into their territories alone, between misty folk and end-of-world elegies. “Fantastic Justice” (piano, cello, march-style drums) excels in the almost symphonic chorus, with Volk who has grown as a vocalist and learned to vary his range, moving from introverted tones to grunge-like rants with great style. The price of admission, however, is justified alone by “Bastogne Blues,” or: twelve minutes of god. A war piece (celebrating an episode of the Second World War, with a two-minute preface-story in which a veteran's voice narrates the dramatic killing of an enemy), is above all a piece of surrender. Suspended in a sepia folk, of dragging and defeated epic, the song is first cradled by Volk eyes closed and then by a procession of strings stretching from here to the horizon; the melodic motif, stretched to infinity, until the chills, like an awe (an emotional too much) from which one cannot free themselves, is one of the peaks of the Crippled Black Phoenix, with a taste of wood and earth that lingers in the air and impregnates everything. Spectacular.

And since the Crippled Black Phoenix never stop, the new album will arrive in the spring. Making this one last until then will be a pleasure.