Uzeda
Waters

How many of you know this band? Perhaps not even 5%, and that is a disheartening figure, because it shows that the MTV school and the Vee-jay professors have done their job well, always telling you what to do and what to listen to, carefully filtering every subversive or simply interesting content, overshadowing our national soundscape in favor of the more colorful, sensational-glossy one from overseas. No worries, I'll fill in the gap.

The Uzeda, a group from Catania formed by singer Giovanna Cacciola (now with Bellini), bassist Raffaele Giuliano, drummer Davide Oliveri, and guitarists Giovanni Nicosia and Agostino Tilotta (also with Bellini), were born in 1987 and demonstrated their abilities on their first album “Out Of Colours.” In 1993, amidst the grunge wave, they enlisted none other than Steve Albini to produce their second album, “Waters.” The mere fact that Albini mobilized and came to Italy to produce a record should give you an idea of what we're going to talk about, at least in terms of attitude and integrity of our Sicilian heroes. It would have been too easy, riding the success wave of various Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, etc., to churn out an anonymous album that met most people's expectations, but instead (Surprise!) in this work, we can only make some analogy with the Sonic Youth in terms of guitar work, then the difference becomes glaring: it would be a mistake to equate Giovanna Cacciola's voice with that of Kim Gordon, because besides being cleaner, it seems to emerge from the deepest unconscious, just as it would be wrong to equate it with the vocal cords of any riot grrrl (and there were many at that time), because it is never slack, never violent, never impetuous. There is an underlying coldness, as if she were a girl trapped in an iceberg, and an almost surgical calm clarity. Another thing that distances them from the familiar noise/grunge scene is the rhythm section. The drums command everything, providing an almost mathematical coherence to each piece, preventing the guitars from straying too far into intellectual digressions that have become a cliché à la Moore/Ranaldo. If the drums do not fulfill this role, the bass ensures the sonic framework goes in the right direction. This rigor won't be found in their masterpiece “Different Section Wires,” released by Touch&Go, where the clamor of the most nihilistic Chicago (Big Black, Rapeman) or the Jesus Lizard will dominate.

Let's illustrate the tracks that make up the album: 1) “Well Paid” : You can immediately tell that the drums are in command, in a solid rhythm, with something gloriously inexplicable about it. Some underlying Zeppelin influences. 2) “Needle House” : starts like a mellow ballad. Every post-something Italian group owes its fortune to guitars like this. Here, the bass is in charge, a bass that sounds like it's played by a mummy because the sound stays muted. 3) “Save My Snakes” : here's an echo of the Big Black sound in the progression of the sounds. Fast paranoia vs dreamlike singing, almost spoken, almost sparse. From songs like this, you understand why Albini wanted to produce them. 4) “I’m Getting Older” : textual disenchantment. A track that recalls the waters of the album's title. Slow start and a short contained central explosion, somewhat like Slint. The guitars are obsessive like in noise, but never chaotic. 5) “Pushing All The Clouds” : here's the slow one, the most accessible and perhaps slightly weaker track of the album. A ballad crescendo with some stronger inserts, but not intrusive. 6) “Tied” : bass and voice, the most lifeless track. Brief final noisy explosion. 7) “It Happened There” : lively track. The rhythm section breaks everything and once again confirms that this is a hell of a job. 8) “30” : again the drums are immense. The school is indeed that of the Big Black, but keep in mind that no one here uses a drum machine. Chaotic start, followed by guitars, almost crossover/funky bass, and continuous tempo changes. 9) “Roaming World” and 10) “Big Shades And Tides”, consistent with what's been said so far, bring it all to a close.

For the finale of this review, I want to emphasize how much it pisses me off that in Italy there have existed and still exist bands of this caliber... bands that are foolishly undervalued in favor of the national Pausini or the more comfortable Subsonica/Marlene... as proof of this, I note that there have been only two Italian bands that had the honor of being invited by the late John Peel to record the famous sessions: one was PFM, the other is this one, and twice no less. I challenge anyone to find a band that in '93, and in this state of which we are so proud at the sonic level (obviously sarcasm), played at this level and with no mainstream pretensions. Uzeda Are People Who Struggle To Conserve The Right To Be Themselves.