Uzeda
Stella

Eight years. Eight long years. The Uzeda's was a "biological stop," as the singer herself declares. Contrary to rumors suggesting they had broken up, the band was simply on a break; and if the results are what we hear in their latest album, 'Stella', then bands should take such breaks more often. The Catanese formation has always been top-notch when it comes to noise, and even today, when the excitement of the '80s-'90s is past, and the music scene is increasingly dominated by post-rock and electronics, Uzeda doesn't back down, gifting us with 30 minutes of venomous music.

Listening to 'Stella' means being pulled by the hair into a whirlwind of rusty, sharp sounds. With this album, Uzeda demonstrates, if there was any need, what they are capable of. A rhythmic session, in which bass and drums navigate magnificent counter-tempo, guarantees the only form of linearity that pervades the tracks. But reigning supreme is a guitar ridden by delirious spasms that envelops the splendid voice of Giovanna Cacciola, never banal, never virtuosic, but simply perfect. A voice capable of transitioning from monotone dullness to screams as powerful as they are abrasive. And yet Uzeda, unlike similar bands, do not focus on sonic clamor; their pieces rarely erupt into explosive blasts. Their music is a constant slither between sharp and abrasive tones. The voice seems to overshadow, seems to look down on the guitar writhing ecstatically over the bass/drums base.

Uzeda is one of those anachronistic groups, stubbornly clinging to a genre that has already fulfilled its purpose, which perhaps has nothing more to offer to music. But listening to their tracks, one cannot help but be enchanted by sounds that, while fitting into the noise ambit, stand out for the experimentation within them; if we must label them, let's define them as noise, but the four Catanese go beyond, and perhaps this is why their music is not at all affected by the passage of time, with its shifts in dominant genres and trends.