Megawave
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Last night we were discussing what the best band singing in Italian might be, among the new ones. These are risky discussions: depending on where you have them, you might end up with names like Lo stato sociale and/or iosonouncane, and then how do you explain that they're not? But most importantly: what do you do if she's cute, blonde, and kind, and you don’t want to come across as too much of an accommodating sycophant, nor too much of a know-it-all snob? Better to say nothing. In the end, however, among somewhat familiar walls and faces, there was unanimous agreement for Storm{O}; because Sospesi nel vuoto bruceremo in un attimo e il cerchio sarà chiuso is truly a great album, and even around my area, someone has noticed.

So, I remember Megawave from Athens. The Athens in Ohio though, not the notoriously band-producing one in Georgia. I actually thought I should come back to this EP, after having it on loop for a long time a few days ago, and here’s the chance. They come to mind because of the association between returning signals that open In volo the Storm{O} album and Intro the Megawave EP. Also because of the dark tones of the covers. No other sensible association: Storm{O} successfully plays hardcore and is pretty fast at times; Megawave plays one of those alt-rock offshoots commonly associated with shoegaze, but then they aren’t shoegaze, just as Swervedriver aren’t. The drum dynamics of NS1 make it clear, the cuts and accents, everywhere, clarify much of the HC roots that have little to do with the regular and simple rhythm of Loveless and the purist strand.

They really have those fuzz sounds on the bass and accompaniment that are so trendy. On the ambient guitar, they have a lot of reverb, chorus, but rather than trembling, they bend, as per the general trend of the new school. If they dropped with such sounds, they'd be mighty heavy, but that is not their intention. An emotional and melancholic calm remains the chimera for these new kids on the scene, although they show their teeth with that fuzz, much more "meat" than "fry," which is very popular this year. They have the emotionality and distant, somewhat grave scream of the Airs that were - they are now changing singers, and who knows - and they load it into Bite Your Tongue. Bite Your Tongue also has one of those riffs that honors the nineties. They have the semitonal venom, in some passages - in Dirt, for example - of the Broken Water I was telling you about here. In the whispered intro of a guitar chorus in Casper, you'll find the Whirr as they were before and perhaps will never be again; the piece then twists, winds in structural disparities and false endings, and the voice scratches in the throat.

And they ask you for nothing.