Deep Blue Something
Byzantium

If there's one thing I don't like about American rock bands from the nineties, it's the disharmony, the discord, the excessive diversity between the tracks on their albums. Well, maybe Americans don't even notice it, and to them, an acoustic by Neil Young doesn't differ from an unplugged by Kurt Cobain. An album from a band of that time could, for example, have in its tracklist a song by the Stooges, one by Springsteen, one by John Denver, a college punk anthem, a radio-friendly grunge piece, and one that isn't, plus a '60s jukebox pop tune, a folk song, a Dylan ballad, and four billion Rickenbackers alongside the usual Gibsons... The result, of course, would always and inevitably be pop rock.

In a way, these bands should be appreciated because at least they've shown they know musical genres, having learned more lessons from more teachers. But if you want to make a root rock album, just include root rock tracks! One of post-punk? What are you waiting for? Do it! The same goes if you want to be folk, post-grunge, country, rockabilly, flower child... What's strange about loving homogeneity?

In fact, the most famous bands, R.E.M. first and foremost, chose this path, didn't they? An acoustic album, then another acoustic, then a rock one like "Monster"... I could also be satisfied with semi-acoustic ballads alternating with pop rock chart-toppers, as was the case with Soul Asylum of that era.

Once again, I'm dealing with the American rock band that throws in a bit of everything: there are a couple of epic tracks like Simple Minds with guitars, one more akin to Soundgarden and another akin to My Vitriol, two explosive and elementary college punk rock pieces, a salsa-rock that seems like a Santana piece with the singer from Matchbox 20, an almost glam rock, a traditional funky rock full of wah-wah, a kind of delicate bossa nova... All almost decent stuff, but it sounds like listening to a compilation. So why not delve into their various skills-ambitions-inclinations by offering less varied-miscellaneous-vague albums? And above all, why not fully explore what, after all, is their best taste and nonetheless the most original, which is that sort of wave-root (!) full of liquid guitars that so much remind you of rural Cure? Music never too confidential, delicate as little in pop rock even when it moves fast, without a doubt one to bet on.

These guys, Deep Blue Something, may not have been anything special, but tracks with not impossible structure like "Hell In Itself," "Dr. Crippen," or "Pullman, Washington" are examples of excellent personality and originality. Delicate and light structures that accompany clear and sensitive arrangements, music so good that you wonder why there's so little of it in this "Byzantium" filled with already heard tracks.

There are bands that fell into oblivion because of who knows what, others simply because of lacking content. And others that didn't have the intelligence or the courage to be themselves, and to fly sufficiently high. That unexplored something, perhaps due to a lack of courage, that "dark blue something" was the sky.