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Rating: Beyond the Rubicon: the kingdom of Absent Time…
Vito represents the flagship band of the indie label Flower Shop Records, created by Robin Proper-Sheppard following the debut of Sophia (opus II after the wonderful and tragic experience of The God Machine).
Now that the creative drive of the entire cross-sectional noise-rock, nu-metal, stoner, and certain “cross-over” scene (from Queens of the Stone Age to Deftones) that the God Machine had largely anticipated on an intuitive level, globally reinterpretible as a “conceptualization” of metal, noise in “rock” tout-court has become in fact “cultured” and more self-aware genres (consider the entire arc of Dinosaur Jr) as the echoes of certain “deconstructed” noise (Sonic Youth, Boss Hog), amplified to unimaginable volumes and contaminated with electronics and ambient-dub (Fudge Tunnel, Scorn) fade away, let's say, after the brilliant insights of Public Image Ltd. and Lou Reed have in various ways reached their most complete and extended form there is a recognized need, at the level of new music, for a metatextual and cultural “turning of the page”: thus affirms the concept and aesthetic idea of “post-rock,” what from Tortoise and Hurricane#1 to Mogwai represents the “new”: sweet, subdued melodies, “by candlelight,” whispered singing, almost broken by the same emotion felt by those who perform the songs, and an unusual contamination between certain psychedelia and certain “reminiscences” of more traditional rock.
It's no coincidence that Sophia, having reached a decent public success, have now landed at City Slang, which represents the flagship label of this “genre” and “philosophical approach.” Vito is an extremely interesting project: from the very beginning that states “this album was created to induce a deep, restorative, and natural sleep…” and the opening with slow offbeat percussion, liquid guitars, sweet melodies, and singing sometimes whispered, sometimes more distinct one can on one hand trace the “influences” informing its creativity, and on the other grasp the freshness of genuinely new ideas. The influences are quickly stated: the psychedelic melody has in Pink Floyd's middle period (“Meddle” and “The Dark Side of the Moon”) its most evident source, the electric sound reprises the eastern guitar lines of Screaming Trees and the "suspended" mood of Radiohead (alternating between “intimacy” and “rapsodic” noise-rock surges in the style of Codeine) with the entire delicate and almost “slender” structure of the songs being like “wrapped” in the almost “feminine” sweetness and grace of the (predominantly) electric melodies, with very hidden hints of electronics…… presented as a sort of Sigur Ros reinterpreting Ennio Morricone (nothing from either name mentioned in the album), Vito is the memory and its surpassing: what can be appreciated in jewels of pure rock lyricism like “Arrested By These Phenomena” and “Falling Out” (xylophone-heavy percussions and melodic noise that bring back memories of My Bloody Valentine) with a voice at times touching the timbre of Simon and Garfunkel.
Between the (known and essential) Velvet Underground and the (less known but perhaps more crucial to understand) Pond and Pigeonhead, both from the American Northwest… a sign of the times?
Beyond the Rubicon: the Future, something that no longer seems so frightening.
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