Marlene on the wall

Never loved the nineties, never loved grunge, never loved post rock... but i would like to make a special post today for my friends Marlene Kuntz with their unique mixture of existential post noise-rock. They are from Cuneo a little Piedmont province, and they were founded around 1990 by the guitarist Riccardo Tesio and the drums player Luca Bergia. The singer and guitarist Cristiano Godano, who previously sang in the broken up Jack on Fire, immediately joins the band and became their leader. They come to the final in the rock contest "Rock targato Italia" in 1993 and Gianni Maroccolo notices them. Their first album, "Catartica", released in May 1994, is one of the best italian post rock album ever. This album contains most of the "classics" of the band, which their public still wants to listen to during their concerts nowadays. Marlene were (are) a real class act and their public still adore them after more than 20 years, a rare example of coherence and musical convinction. They never went to Sanremo Italian Festival and you will not see them very often on tv. But they are very famos nowadays, still playing a sophisticated style of dark and brooding music, a little bit influenced by grunge but also devoted to the italian traditional idea of post punk music. They have been on the music scene for around 20 years and they surely deserve their premiere place in our poor rock history. If you enjoy well-constructed hypnotyc songs a la Radiohead played with panache then they are worth a listen!