In the early days, fans of the Dean Blunt-led world music scene from which they emerged struggled to rationalize it. Sometimes the band seemed to offer the same obtuse pleasures as their experimental forefather, while at other times they simply delivered great songs. The band’s own sound reflects this, with its odd mix of endlessly catchy guitar riffs and slacker amateurism. Even the interviews maintained their mystery; the band appeared so unpretentious that some began to perceive pretension in them. People often project ideas onto bar italia, rather than confront those the band puts forward. On Some Like It Hot, their fifth album and third for Matador, they appear with clarity for the first time. The formerly obtuse psych-folk pleasures of early releases like Quarrel and Bedhead now reappear defined and poised, while the indie bangers of their Matador era are sharper than ever. The result is their clearest work yet – a collection of tracks as searing and seductive as the album’s title suggests.
One of bar italia’s key features has always been its dynamism and chemistry. The band has the ability to make ideas and moments work far better than they should, essentially orchestrating brilliant moments of musical acrobatics. Some Like It Hot has some of their most graceful leaps yet, opener “Fundraiser” slowly layers together its elements and hooks till it’s barrelling with unprecedented speed. “Rooster” starts a caustic slab of disconcerting garage punk with Nina Cristante’s normally twee vocals turning furious and ferocious before backflipping into dream-like psychedelia on the line “When you say jump I jump.” While they may be more efficient than ever, bar italia’s sense of play hasn’t been lost. The core link between the album’s title and the film it’s named after is the album’s mix of glamour and satire. At points reaching for high emotional melodrama and others settling into raw rhythms and sonic excess.
It’s hard to overstate just how sharp the band has gotten.
Their hazy folk pop ballads, which once seemed fit for haunted apartment
complexes, now sound like forlorn desert resorts. The exquisite “bad
reputation” moves woth the rhythms of a forgotten waltz, its hazy
hypnagogic guitars bringing to mind the shining reshot on the costa del
sol. That’s not to say the bands entirely lost their phantom edge. “The
lady vanishes” repurposes the ethereal waves of shoegaze and dream pop
into an elegy for the forlorn. Its climaxing drums combine with Sam
Fenton’s emotive vocals to sound like a ghost weeping through its
exorcism.
What might be lost a little was the band’s most haunting
quality. Their ability to render the indie rock and post-punk sounds of
the past into a bizarre mirage of what they once were. Their incredible
capabilities as songwriters push forward the lo-fi ethos of Cleaners
From Venus and Guided By Voices into something uncanny. The sounds of
the bands that the city forgot reappeared through radio static or the
window of a pub. It’s hard to say if that sound was ever bar italia’s
intention, but with this newfound clarity, something has been lost. As
brilliant in its rhythms and hooks as a song like “omni shambles” is, it
doesn’t sound like some forgotten classic from the early 2000s
post-punk revival. It simply sounds like an excellent track from the
early 2000s post-punk revival.
But at the end of the day, that’s the band’s vision. With
each release, their sound has gotten crisper and clearer, the murkiness
parting like mist to now reveal bar italia fully defined. It’s hard to
decide whether something has been lost or gained; the reality is both.
By maneuvering their psychedelia to one side, the band has crafted their
most clearly defined record to date. For those in love with bar italia
for their uncanny qualities, there’s still something here, but the
verdict on intention is up. Bar italia is a band built around scorching
hot guitar pop. The years of practice and recording have now fully paid
off with tracks that sound like instant indie classics. Yet their
strongest moments remain those where they fully embrace that sense of
play. Staging songs like scenes from a film, switching momentum and
effect to reach bizarre new conclusions. On Some Like It Hot, those
moments are rarer, but when they appear, they’re excellent. Jewels in a
crown sharper than those before, but not quite as shimmering.