Serafin
No Push Collide

THE REVIEW

Active since the distant September 2000 and led by the talented frontman Ben Fox Smith (formerly of Stony Sleep), Serafin are among the most underrated bands in the vast and varied British music scene.

Only in 2003 did they release their debut album with the splendid "No Push Collide", then driven by two impactful singles like "Day By Day" and, especially, "Things Fall Apart". The first is a beautiful blend of resounding guitars and very catchy melodic lines, the second is one of the most beautiful singles produced by a British band in recent years, in the vein of the very first works of their compatriots Placebo. The production of the full-length album is entrusted to the renowned producer Dave Sardy.

The aforementioned two hits are, however, just the tip of the iceberg; "No Push Collide", in fact, does not follow the overused britpop-indie trend typical of certain (numerous) British bands, but ventures into a completely different discourse. Serafin, in fact, define themselves as a cross between Jane's Addiction and Weezer, although they have often been compared to bands such as Pixies, Nirvana, the same Placebo, Radiohead, Blur, and Jacob's Mouse.

In this excellent debut, we find numerous ingredients that make each track interesting and engaging until the last note: the noisy first track "Stephen's In The Sky" already clearly defines the stylistic standards that we will find in the rest of the work. Apart from some exceptions, such as the "molkian" inflections of the hyper-melodic "Things Fall Apart" or the two final slow tracks ("Peaches From Spain" and "Who Could I Be?", the latter being the only song that can be approached to certain British pop styles), Smith's voice becomes scratchy and nervous but always far from certain "dangerous" Cobain-like affinities (exemplary is the splendid power ballad "Ordinarily Me"). When the band alternates catchy and engaging verses with choruses pushed to the maximum, the result is even exhilarating ("No Happy"). The few negative notes are reduced to a barely concealed and inappropriate desire to overdo it, see the confused "Numerical" and "Green Disaster Twice", or the excessive "mimicry" of other bands (in "Lethargy", they move from Ash to more angry Nirvana in the blink of an eye). In "Build High, Tear Low" they seem like less commercial Foo Fighters than the original, while "Sage Waits" owes a lot to the highly favored atmospheres created in their time by Radiohead's "The Bends" version.

In nine years of activity, Serafin (due to legal issues caused by Warner Bros's merger of their old label Taste Media) have managed to release a follow-up to "No Push Collide" ("To The Teeth") only in 2007, unfortunately obtaining very little visibility.

We hope they can make a comeback in the future, they truly deserve it.

Key tracks: "Stephen's In The Sky", "Things Fall Apart", "No Happy", "Ordinarily Me"