Sicilian math-rock band Uzeda formed in the late '80s and a peer of the brainy, thoughtful misery-peddlers of its day, bands that held the dark banner of labels such as Touch & Go and Amphetamine Reptile high above their unwashed heads. After an 8-year hiatus, Giovanna Cacciola, Agostino Tilotta, Giovanni Nicosia and Davide Oliveri are back with a smoking fury on their new album Stella. The group is named after the ancient gateway leading into their hometown of Catania, located on the slopes of Europe’s highest active volcano, Mount Etna. To the Romans, Mount Etna was the realm of Vulcan, god of fire and iron forging. Uzeda must be direct decedents for their fervidly pounding rhythms are nothing short of godlike.
Back at the helm again, producer Steve Albini, who recorded the group’s three previous Touch & Go releases, turns out their best production to date. Listening to the razor-sharp Shellac-esque guitars of guitarist Tilotta, you’d swear Alibini leant him his Travis Bean and custom rig. Singer Cacciola has perfected the subdued crooning exploding in to a dissonant maelstrom, as demonstrated on appropriately named track “Wailing.” Nicosia provides a powerful undercurrent of bass pushing the songs forward while drummer Oliveri accents the overall sonic fury.
Despite the cacophonous premises, there is a sort of classical mastery in the way Uzeda pens perfectly impossible harmonies. The limit of this music is the song format: it sounds contradictory that one detonates the song format only to replace it with a format of the same duration and the same scope. For the avid noise/math connoissuer, Stella is another surgical essay in shrill dissonance that will not disappoint. |