Y & T
Down for the Count

The recent Italian appearance at the Bellagio Rock Festival was an opportunity to revisit the discography of Y & T, the historic hard rock ensemble from San Francisco. Born in the early seventies, they never achieved the success of the genre's more renowned names, but they were nonetheless authors of several excellent LPs between the seventies and eighties. Despite the band's discography being quite sparse over the last twenty years, also due to a long period of inactivity, the group has recently started coming to play in Italy with some frequency, thanks in part to a series of connections around Como, an area where they have now become regular guests. After the great concert last year, the Bellagio festival was an opportunity to replicate, presenting a setlist that alternated between old classics and more recent tracks.

As mentioned earlier, the Americans' discography is not very extensive, about fifteen albums spread over almost forty years of career, but naturally, several significant releases are not lacking. This "Down for the Count," from 1985, closes what is usually considered the group's "classic" period, with the original lineup still intact, right before a merry-go-round of musicians began to undermine its stability. The album, often quite underrated and not considered up to its predecessors, is actually a collection of very good hard rock that, although some tracks are better than others, manages to entertain for a solid forty minutes, also thanks to a production that strongly emphasizes impact and power.

The opening tracks "In the Name of Rock," "Anytime at All," and "All American Boy" immediately set the coordinates for the entire album, namely classy rock, colored here and there by the contribution of various session keyboardists, including Claude Schnell, known at the time for his stint with Dio. Dave Meniketti's voice and guitar, always strong with their blues heritage, contribute to enriching the various pieces, managing to once again successfully recreate a formula that already had over ten years of career at the time. "Face Like an Angel," a significant piece, is quickly followed by "Summertime Girls," one of the most famous tracks in the Californians' discography, with its chorus and keyboards taking center stage. The second side of the record doesn't match the first, with tracks like "Your Mama Don't Dance," a cover of a fifties piece, lacking the charm of the earlier songs, and "Don't Tell Me What to Wear" proving to be a mediocre track that adds little to what has already been said. However, Y & T know what they're doing, and with that final flourish named "Hands of Time," a long and grandiose track, they beautifully close an album where there is certainly much light but also often too many shadows creeping in. For those unfamiliar with Y & T, it might be better to start with other works, namely the earlier ones, leaving this "Down for the Count" for a later moment. Not a masterpiece, then, but still a pleasant album.