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Rating: Just a few days ago, I had no idea who this "Pop Bible" was. And I certainly didn't think I would sign up on a music review website to talk about this EP. Yet... sometimes it just takes a moment and... boom boom boom (as the great Catalano used to say).
I would like my first review to be the review I have always wanted to read, that is: short, concise, targeted, interesting... and already I'm going on too long!
Returning to the so-called Bible... I discovered their first single by chance on YouTube, and I clicked only because the song was called "Puttana's Talking" and the first preview image was a girl. Play. A super flashy fuzz guitar (reminiscent of Zappa) starts with a mean and playful riff at the same time, followed by the song proper, a fixed construction of "you're a slut + ..." where the ellipses are filled with cute and/or surreal adjectives ("environmentalist," "chocolate," "casually Catholic" (?), "square"). The girl (photographed in black and white) mimics the adjectives in a (I believe) fake LIS. Behind the veil of playfulness and tacky provocation, the guys from the Pop Bible craft with great class a song that's outright "pop", with various nods (surf choruses, strange cowbells, sweet, heartbreaking violins) that make their earworm literally irresistible.
So what to expect from the other songs of the work "6 Little Tender Heart Attacks"? Well, everything you might have imagined ("will they all sound the same?")...forget it immediately!
After the opener "The New Summer Camp," an erotic-adolescent mantra lasting a few seconds, sung with the rage of a teenage onanist mocked by classmates, and the aforementioned "Puttana's Talking," I would have expected anything but... "A Chocolate Story."
...life is returning to how it used to be, all the precise phrases in rhyme...
poignant and magnificent arrangement on a proto-vintage base enriched by distant metaphysical sounds, of disconcerting modernity and stylistic cleanliness... the ghost of deep 60s singing, a very refined text that creates tangles of assonant sounds in the verse and then gives way to a wordless chorus, where violins and piano sing...
I go on, puzzled on one hand ("where are these guys aiming to go?") and as excited as a child...what will be after?
"Discount Hotel" is a hit to the coronary: riff fired at full throttle, extremely syncopated verse, scream-worthy bridge (and in this case, the one shouting -I discovered later- is an old acquaintance of mine, Mr. Chiazzetta!) and a cheeky chorus: "where will my dead sperm end up?" the guys sing, under an unexpectedly disco base... yeah, where? "In Discount Hotel," of course... and obviously after a dance moment, what could come next but... the polar cold of Alaska? After "A Chocolate Story," I bow once again to these apostles. Discount Hotel is a masterpiece.
"Myocardium" is a fragment, the deconstruction of the very concept of an Italian song... imagine Gino Paoli dressed like Morgan singing in the depths of the ocean... and echoes of a submarine from afar... let me repeat: disconcerting modernity!
"Would You Do?" is a male love duet...it's the most classically Italian (and pop) song of the EP... bandoneon intro and layered arrangement, sonic power and pianistic sweetness, an instantly catchy melodic line. I honestly had never heard a male love duet, and my surprise was the classy choice not to even subtly touch the theme of homosexuality (a choice that, in my opinion, would have ruined the song) but to present the listener with a squabble between two so-called lovers...why so-called? Because, "what's the use if I don't feel bad, what's the use if I never think of you."
What to say to these musical evangelists? That listening to the Pop Bible for 15 minutes (the total duration of the EP) moved, entertained, and amazed me... and I had the feeling that the band's two souls (one shamelessly provocative and one deeply dreamlike-romantic) are still studying each other, seducing each other... like in Would You Do... but that they haven't yet given each other a real first kiss... but I eagerly await listening to new songs from this Pop Bible because, dear sirs, these unknown guys have the makings of true champions!
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