Peter Jacques Band
Welcome Back

After the excellent commercial success that the "Peter Jacques Band" had with the EP "Fire night dance," it was time for the Italian "studio concept" band to produce a real album, more mature and studied than the previous product and, above all, with a real group at its disposal. Yes, because this was how the Italian team of producer Jacques Fred Petrus manufactured hits and bands: on one side there was a lineup of songwriters (like Mauro Malavasi, Celso Valli, Davide Romani, Rudy Trevisi...) who composed the songs, and on the other there was a large group of singers and musicians who played them. It was Fred who decided which albums the pieces would end up on and how they should be presented.

This mechanism had a few rare exceptions (which over time became less and less rare), and the album "Welcome back" can be considered one of them. Finally, the Peter Jacques Band was a real band, with four actual members. Even just by reading the album title, you can sense the ambition behind it, and you already start to perceive a radical shift in the sound of all the other bands under contract (or better to say created) with the legendary label "Goody music." From the carefree, catchy, and playful eurodisco of the first 1979 EP, under the guidance of Mauro Malavasi (who wrote the entire album), "Welcome back" (1980) presents a more serious sound, more oriented towards new funk (also known as "groove") and the sounds of the decade that had just begun. Undoubtedly a huge step forward (considering that the entire remaining production, except for the more famous "Change," still revolved around the disco music scene) and above all a clear demonstration of the Italian capacity to assimilate and make any musical genre its own.

Artistically speaking, the album was at excellent levels, almost reaching excellence from a technical standpoint (always a distinctive element of works under the "Goody music" brand). The rhythmic and sonic precision combined with dynamic, enveloping, yet never excessive arrangements make "Welcome back" an album of great class, with uncommon energy and easily relatable. Not to mention the absolute catchiness of all the tracks, in addition to their danceability, absolutely indispensable qualities for an album produced by a label with products destined primarily for the dance floor (even though albums like this sound great on a home stereo).

Side A starts with "Counting on love one two three," a lively, conventional yet very dynamic track, useful for not frightening (or surprising) those coming from the debut EP and immediately getting the listener accustomed to the new sounds. This leads to the hypnotic title track, "Welcome back," written by Malavasi with (guess who?) the not-yet-risen soul star Luther Vandross! If "Welcome back" features electronic arrangements mixed with acoustic ones to the point of seeming unreal, the third and final song on Side A, the syncopated "The louder," delivers a slap in the face to everyone, as if to say: "it's not a dream, it's all real, the disco music era is over, look to the future!" Side B still holds many surprises: the fourth track "Is it it" will be the most successful single from the album, breaking into the native hit parade and quickly reaching the top 20, leaving a rhythmic-sonic legacy soon to be embraced by the emerging Italo disco scene. Halfway through is song 5, "Exotically," very similar in setup to track 1, excellent as a dance-floor filler yet far from banal and highly catchy (with some cues borrowed this time from disco music). The last track (yes, unfortunately, there are only six) is the melancholic "Mighty fine," perhaps the best of the album, similar yet not too much to "The louder."

And thus ends another piece of Italian music history (albeit sung in English), unjustly forgotten or perhaps the victim of far worse indifference. The fact remains that this kind of product is today reserved for the ears of enthusiasts and supporters since they are rarely (if ever) played on the radio (I once heard "Is it it" on a local station). Maybe it’s better this way; I believe that music must be understood before being commented on, and I also think that radio promotes the exact opposite. So, since this is DeBaser, I leave it to true connoisseurs to read this review and comment. Those who happened upon here by chance and read this far did just as well and have enriched their cultural background with a record (for the era it was released in) that was innovative and absolutely the best in the discography of the never-really-forgotten "Peter Jacques Band," the brainchild of that genius Malavasi, that sly fox Fred Petrus, and that country called Italy.