Semi Precious Weapons
You Love You

I had the chance to discover this bizarre band, Lady GaGa's supporter, during Miss Germanotta’s show in Turin: a semi-debut band led by the blond and ultra androgynous Justin Tranter and known mainly for the deep emotional - artistic bond with the more famous neighbor, with whom they share tours, stadiums, and a hyperbolized liberal/libertine mentality exalted without censorship.

Permanently dressed in changing frayed and skimpy outfits, made up like a matryoshka, and dedicated to movements and swaying that are hardly masculine, Tranter nevertheless possesses a significant amount of charisma, a quality now indispensable to break through the inscrutable barriers of today’s music biz. In the era of glitter, extravagance, sequins, and champagne in abundance, the music scene is slavishly oriented towards fashionable and chic glamour: the Semi Precious Weapons are merely one of the countless incarnations of such aspirations. Mixing the glam rock of David Bowie and Queen (revised and corrected) with contemporary eccentric sexual and costume shamelessness, Justin & company embrace provocation and irony, satire, and strategically orchestrated scandal, disregarding social bigotries and reigning hypocrisy.

The album "You Love You" is, in fact, the (almost) perfect corollary of the aforementioned: an absolutely frivolous mix of glam rock, patinas, androgyny, aesthetics, crystals, and sparkles. Yet, the apotheosis of lighthearted spirit is countered by a notable energy and vigor (best exported to the stage): the "hysterical" squeals and drag queen (excited) falsettos harmoniously blend with the glam-alternative sounds infused by the band's instruments.

Even the song titles speak volumes about the prevailing mood: Sticky with Champagne, Leave Your Pretty to Me, Rock n Roll Never Looked So Beautiful, Put a Diamond on It. Nine well-constructed, engaging, lively tracks that are never "plastic," a mystic effusion of golden jewels and moral lightheartedness: from the powerful dynamite charge of Semi Precious Weapons exploring the twerking atmosphere in Put a Diamond on It, the noisy, sassy orgasms of Magnetic Baby, and the voluptuous squeals of Sticky with Champagne; worth mentioning is the melancholic and nostalgic ballad Leave Your Pretty to Me.

We are not in the presence of true stage monsters, nor of innovative performers and monstrous rock strategists: what these four guys intend to offer is a pleasant, compact, and simple work sufficient to embrace and enhance the concepts of joy, serenity, and fun, without nevertheless drastically falling into clubby electronic-dance "trashiness".

Semi Precious Weapons, "You Love You

Semi Precious Weapons - Put a Diamond on It - Magnetic Baby - Statues of Ourselves - Sticky with Champagne - I Could Die - Leave Your Pretty to Me - Rock n Roll Never Looked So Beautiful - Look at Me.