viridanse

This a kind of xmas gift, a rare old boot by the wonderful Alessandria's boys Viridanse. They played a lot in 1984 and maybe that was their best year. Giovanni Pastrone and the band recorded only two albums, both great and forgotten, "Benvenuto Cellini" (1984) & "Mediterranea" (1985) on Contempo Records. Their style is well described in the fundamental & now apparently dead "Il golpe e l'uva" blog: ...their guitar-based darkwave style owes much to Joy Division, though it turns down the band's trademark funeral feeling into a more voluptuous sound delving on Meditterranean influences and melodic arabesques. The singer's emphatic vocals, very typical of Italian darkwave, and the wannabe cerebral lyrics may sound quite disturbing, but the mood of the album is original and peculiar, slightly resembling to a Mediterranean version of Japan's "Tin Drum". Apart from the forced comparisons, Viridanse's convoluted basslines were much probably influenced by Mick Karn's legendary style. Most tracks are dominated by the fine and sharp-sounding intrications of the two guitars and all of them are pervaded by a hedonistic, decadent mood which is, as a matter of fact, the album's most accomplished element...Anyway, it seems to me that they sounded more poppier in the studio recordings than alive on stage. So I've decided to let you hear these tracks from an old show in their hometown... welcome back again Viridanse!