Probably the most obscure band in this obscure blog, Scent Merci were an interesting italian post punk band of the eighties. It’s hard to know, as there is no entry on the official sites, only brief posts about them on a few lost blogs. Scent Merci never seems to get mentioned in the endless articles about the post punk/new wave period in Italy. One blogger rated their song "Secret of Joy" in the top ten best post-punk italian songs over the likes of Diaframma, Litfiba etc... anyway, a lot of italian bands could also have been good candidates for a list of completely underrated bands, but Scent Merci is the one I’d never actually heard of until incidentally saw a youtube video by ex Wax Heroes guitarist and soon after this, the great blog Systems of Romance gave us the wonderful Treviso 1986 Compilation on cassette only "Treviso Underground". And between the others, Scent Merci are really interesting. It may require some patience to navigate their relaxing jingle jangle murky atmospheres, but is rewarding for any fans of those lost italian sounds. It seems also there is a renew interest in their music nowadays. They have a new Facebook page and finally an exhaustive page on Last.fm with some good infos about their history and their discography too, from the ‘Cabaret du Chat Noir’ demo (1986) to their partecipation in various compilations like Amnesty International P.E.A.C.E. Benefit Compilation (1987). From their FB profile they recently promise good news about a possible compilation of old material... let's wait for them listening to their old tunes.
