Thin White Rope
Sack Full Of Silver

If not a party, I would like to found an Association for the Redemption of the Eighties... Until not long ago, hearing "it's from the 80s" about any musical "product" would send a shiver of terror down my spine because I knew my poor eardrums would be corrupted by nauseating blasts of synthesizers and a "sub"-human beat from plastic drums, giving me the impression of a world in artistic agony that had lost all identity and spontaneity. Perhaps it is from this primitive view of the musical Eighties that the Thin White Rope "redeemed" me first.

"Sack Full Of Silver" is indeed from 1990, but TWR are a creature of the penultimate decade of the century. To the "metaphorical" desert of much of the production from those years, the great Californian band counters with a harsh, dry desert rock like hadn't been heard in a long time; up to this point, one might think of the classic Paisley à la Dream Syndicate, but in my opinion, their main peculiarity is having freed themselves more than others from the New Wave excesses that were both positively and negatively "degenerating" in those years.

Their music is sparse, rough but so frank, direct, and alive, their idols are the lesser-known rockers from the California Sixties, particularly the Quicksilver Messenger Service, and I would also say the obscure Mad River. For anyone wanting to savor a bit of deep and wild America, the most authentic I hope, start listening to "Americana" and "Ghost," the latter truly desperately touching. This is life. (at least for me).