Playing an explosive mix of rock'n'roll, blues, surf, psychedelia, and punk, in the early eighties and moreover in Italy, in a scene dominated by the gray and intellectual wave of Litfiba and Diaframma, is something out of the ordinary.
And indeed, such are the Not Moving, a band from Piacenza featuring two veterans of primeval Italian hardcore - Antonio "Tony Face" Bacciocchi from Chelsea Hotel (drums) and Domenico "Dome La Muerte" Petrosino from Cheetah Chrome Motherfuckers (guitar) - alongside Rita "Lilith" Oberti (vocals), Danilo "Dany D." Dalla Giovanna (bass), and Mariella "Maria Severine" Rocchetta (keyboards).
One of the greatest bands to have ever graced the Italian soil, unfortunately, Not Moving were also among the unluckiest since a rather unlucky fate always denied them visibility and recognition.
Just think that their best work, the 1984 mini LP «Land Of Nothing», was only published 19 years later, and that their first LP «Sinnermen», at the time of release in 1986, was heavily penalized by an unfortunate and unauthorized remix, only in 2009 - 23 years later - did it see the light in its original version.
The 2009 reissue of «Sinnermen» is a fundamental operation, in the sense that the 2009 record is something entirely different compared to the 1986 version: the first is as explosive and dynamic as the second is dull and muffled. And if a band blending Cramps, X, and Gun Club doesn’t sound like a deadly garage combo should, then it's difficult for things to add up...
Ultimately, what is «Sinnermen» if not a journey that unfolds along fifteen compositions, forged by indissolubly tying punk and rockabilly («You Really Got Me Babe», «Ice Eyes Baby», and as a bonus, the cover of Presley’s «Kissin' Cousins», already thoroughly obliterated by the debuting Saints in 1977), hard psychedelia and blues («I Know Your Feelings», «My Lovely Loved», the Rolling Stones-esque «Cocksucker Blues», to name a few); all rendered with the spirit of those who, though driven by an innate rebellious instinct and tempered in the seventies orgy, are well aware of what should be preserved from the parents' legacy.
To say it with a hefty dose of rhetoric, the most beautiful of the albums (never released) by Gun Club, standing at the crossroad where the raw impetuosity of «The Fire Of Love», the never-pacified restlessness of «Miami», and the meditated and gloomy maturity of «The Las Vegas Story» meet. So, it's not by chance that «Sinnermen» includes «Pray For Your God», which can rightfully be considered the natural progeny of «Preachin' The Blues», the piece that alone symbolizes all the tumultuous universe of Jeffrey Lee Pierce at the time of «Fire Of Love».
X and Gun Club, it was said, but in truth, it's even reductive to label Not Moving as a bastard crossover between the amphetamine-driven rock‘n'roll of X from «Los Angeles», «Wild Gift», and even «Under The Big Black Sun» (and how beautiful all the songs performed in two voices by Lilith and Dome are, suggesting the wild doubt that they might even be better than Exene and John Doe) and the forlorn yet undaunted blues of the Gun Club and a Jeffrey Lee Pierce living fast and dying young in the burning passion of tracks like «A Wonderful Night To Die» and «In The Batland», with Dome's guitar sinking into infinite whirlpools of reverb.
The cherry on top is the inclusion – in the 2009 CD version – of the previous 1985 EP «Black'n'Wild», with its alternation of dry and convulsive sounds (the garage-style «The Crawling») and slow evocative blues ballads («Eternal Door»), and the cover of «I Just Wanna Make Love To You», which can reasonably be discussed for its seminal punk-blues attitude (Scientists and Harem Scarem, among the first names that come to mind as points of comparison).
The beautiful and important adventure of Not Moving would soon come to a close, but Lilith, Dome La Muerte, and Tony Face are still around, telling and playing other stories, different in substance from those of thirty years ago, yet always the same in reminding us that rock is more of a garage thing, than of museums and art galleries...
Tracklist
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