Vanilla Sky
Waiting For Something

For a long time, emopunk was just a trademark made in the USA, thanks to bands like Underoath, Silverstein, Hawthorne Heights, which exported the genre to all parts of the world. But there are groups in Italy that have nothing to envy from these well-established and famous overseas emopunk bands. This is the case with our very own Vanilla Sky, signed by Wynona Records (already home to Italian bands like 9mm, Forty Winks, and Melody Fall) after their debut album, leaving them to produce this album without too many expectations or obligations.

Waiting For Something presents itself to the listener as an album with engaging and fresh sounds, their melodic emo/rock draws inspiration from international level bands like The Starting Line, Midtown, Silverstein, and the more melodic Thursday; and in some cases, they manage to do this work better than the aforementioned bands. The strength of this album lies in moving the listener, albeit with sounds not too sophisticated but fun, as in the opening track "Distance", and in some cases sad and melancholic, as in the splendid ballad "Looking For Memories", where the group's most emo soul is enclosed.

There are also songs with a tougher, more hardcore spirit, such as "Wait For The Sun", and how can we not mention the wonderful, splendid cover of Vanessa Carlton's "Thousand Miles", already beautiful on its own, majestically rearranged and brought to its maximum splendor by these guys. The lyrics speak, as always, of love, friendships, gone-wrong stories, etc. Perhaps the only flaw of this album is indeed in the lyrics, perhaps too tied to the usual emo clichés, but that are nonetheless not to be discarded.

We have in front of us one of the best Italian emopunk realities, and I'm not joking when I say that if they had been American, they could have had a place alongside the groups mentioned at the beginning of the review. We are talking about a young band, a group of guys with talent and courage. Only time will tell what will become of them and their beautiful music; as far as I'm concerned, I sincerely hope that Vanilla Sky continues down this path (I'm not saying not to commercialize, because their music is indeed so) but it is beautiful music, played with passion, and deep down, we know, what is done with passion always turns out infinitely well.