The Bastard Sons of Dioniso
L'amor carnale

I begin with a necessary clarification. 90%, and possibly more, of those who are familiar with the name The Bastard Sons of Dioniso (which will finally be written here in the correct Italian manner, not as "I The Bastard Sons of Dioniso." After all, everyone speaks, at least in our jargon, of "I Beatles" and not "I The Beatles") know them essentially for one reason: they were the "alternative ®" revelation of the talent show X-Factor.

But, there's a but. Beyond the malicious tongues who would want to gratuitously throw dirt on this group, the BSoD are not a concoction created at the drawing board. This power-trio from Valsugana, in fact, is not to be underestimated. They have released two albums with songs in English, more or less self-produced (and certainly inimitable), apparently even well-curated in their packaging (which never represents the quality of the music but does outline a minimum creative intent) with humorous titles ("Even Lemmy Sometimes Sleeps").

Then one fine day perhaps for pure fun or out of frustration caused by an endless string of live performances in small Trentino venues, the three got fed up and signed up for an audition for the aforementioned television program. But, there's another but. They presented themselves as a vocal group! Obviously, because it's a show where instruments are banned!! Moreover, as those who happened to follow X-Factor with keen ears know, their vocal quality is certainly not homogeneous!!! It hardly matters what you think, they nonetheless turned a corner (whether for the better or worse will be seen) when a very shrewd judge realized they could have a good effect on the audience as they were aesthetically different from anything else seen on these little shows so far.

But I'm not here to judge their social climb. So, let's cut the chatter, I aim to describe these young boozy goofballs for their music only, which is then the only decent justification to criticize an artist's career as an artist, namely by reviewing their recent single "L'amor carnale" which is nothing more than a translation into Italian of one of their songs in the Albion language, "The Zwang Song."

The track begins with a nice fast riff that, a bit more slowed down and dark, would seem almost of stoner origin. A cute riff, to tell the truth, somewhat swiped from the Kiss song "Detroit Rock City". It's not surprising considering the three are declared fans of a certain '70s hard rock. Well, let's move on, a "quote" can also be acceptable. However, just as the voice kicks in, you discover the most original component of their track, which is unfortunately also the most irritating part. The Bastard Sons of Dioniso have, in fact, fused a revisitation of that "rock that was" with a voice and backing vocals reminiscent of Finley, and if we wanted to seek an Anglophile comparison, more than to AC/DC, the Valsuganans would terribly resemble Fall Out Boy (a neo-emo group capable of both cute tracks and monstrous flops). With such a background played, a dark and raspy voice would have fit like a glove, but listening to other tracks on MySpace it seems they really like this kind of plastic and characterless singing.

The lyrics, however, are pleasantly silly and hark back to the sexual delight allusions of certain "cock rock" that has now had its day, while remaining on heavily watered-down levels as they are still too immature mainstream products. The little story of a guy aroused by a girl evidently of high "babe rating," at which point the guy begins to imagine what the girl could do to that thing subtly named in the song as "soul."

Here's the very catchy chorus, judge for yourselves:

"Often the gaze is hungry
it can satisfy the appetite
but carnal love
doesn't consume all yeses
your beauty rises all the way to the soul
just imagining
what your hand does"

In short, the only thing left to say is that now the Bastard Sons of Dioniso, having reached popularity, find themselves facing a crossroads fraught with dangers: on one side, there's the major and an almost-guaranteed profit via a career based on questionable emo-hard-pop; on the other, there's the possibility to carve out an original artistic path by cleverly satisfying both the industry's desires (and thus $$$$) and the demanding public (that is the critique, namely us debasers).

Ultimately, it is difficult to say what will become of these lively young men perhaps a bit too clean-cut for the music they play. Certainly in the Italian rock scene, there has always been plenty on the table (contrary to what the average Italian and Mara Maionchi believe), and this relatively anonymous young trio will have to fight hard to carve out a niche for themselves so they can be heard even by those who never listen to music on the radio or avoid MTV when the music video spin cycle starts. Yes, they will really have to hustle hard...

...but maybe not. In the end, they have already earned the admiration of "IleNyA, the silly kid" (prototypical of the average young person in the vein of Joe, The Plumber).

Good for them. For us, who knows...