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Rating: VALENTE - Yesterday's Blue
(Soviet Records/Audioglobe)
“How does it feel to always be told no,” sings Valente in the title track. Perhaps for the generation of the '80s, that constant denial led to a drift towards heroin, generational spleen, melancholy, and widespread depression. And musically speaking, proponents of the spleen like Ian Curtis of Joy Division, Ian McCullogh of Echo & The Bunnymen, Robert Smith of the Cure. Ghosts of Joy Division wander through the notes of “Volume altissimo.” “Notti senza sogni” makes us think of Siouxsie & The Banshees (for that almost oriental use of the guitar that was majestic in “Hong Kong Garden”). The keyboards, though with a different, almost ambient approach, bring to mind Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (in the title track). The sax that bursts into “Sogni di te,” already psychedelic and wave in itself, reminds us of the Psychedelic Furs of the beautiful debut album. All this is “yesterday's blue,” which Valente and his traveling companions in this blue have skillfully brought to the present. The references are clear, but the album here is not a mere retro nostalgic operation. Everything is reinterpreted with the zeitgeist of the here and now. And the no's of then perhaps become yes's. Yes, we can, yes, we are up to it, yes, we are worth it too.
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