Siena Root
Kaleidoscope

I was born on a warm morning in the late '70s to a mother who sang Nilla Pizzi songs and a father who was the Grand Priest of Liscio, now a musical agnostic.

I spent my childhood dodging the '80s electropop recommended by the Super Telegattone, dedicated my puberty to finding a detergent that would preserve the colors of my flannel shirts, and consumed my adolescence in a futile attempt to digi-evolve into "Tetsuo - The Medal Man".

Musically speaking, I don't know where I'll be in ten years. Perhaps I don't even know where I am right now. But when I realize that all these mental musings are taking over my stereo, I flee to the '60s/'70s rock revival festival organized by these five guys from Stockholm.

"Kaleidoscope" ('04) is the second album by Siena Root and, as far as I'm concerned, the best of their discography: a big colorful ride where the music of the Old Gods of rock gallops, bucks, and slides, shows off its legs and flaunts its muscles, winks and tells you to fuck off always with a certain class, always with a certain savoir faire.

An album where thirty-year loans of grand funk rock à la Hendrix bask in the miracle of multiplying wah-wahs. Hard rock rides, sent by priority mail from the warehouses of Zeppa and Deep Purple, form a groovy and rocky carpet on which the hammond can embroider lace and frills of triplets in pure John Lord Style ("There And Back Again", "The Good And Bad").

Recycled Sabbath riffs turned into a spit roast for a flourish of jam-like keyboards and horns ("Reverberations"), accompanied by psychedelic spices and instrumental interludes with an ethnic aftertaste, which season the broth by lengthening and expanding it, until it reaches the edges of a space rock with curry, between Bombay, Babylon, Bellatrix, and Betelgeuse ("Bhairavi Dhun").

Soulful blues tunes you'd expect to hear in one of those bars where people meet to piece together broken hearts ("Blues 276"), and a female voice that dominates everything: "just the right shade of black like a good coffee", hoarse and gruff but capable of surrendering to sudden upward currents of lyricism. One of those voices you'd gladly let pamper and rough you up, caress and spank you.

Not a masterpiece. Rather, a damn fine old-school hard rock album, perhaps nostalgic but never pathetic, proudly flaunting its derivativeness like it was a medal.

I don't know if in ten years I'll still be throwing tantrums to stay on this same ride. For now, I'm having a blast. And if I catch the little tail, the next ride is free...