A knife under the bed makes you think about your past mistakes

For the last decade I had a sort of unspeakable repulsion for Italian records. Probably some personal issues led to a gossip driven disaffection that compromised my disposition to enjoy a record out of Italy. Things went out quite well but there was something that I missed. Anyway, life goes on even if you deliberately put in the ignore session a whole country. The absolutely rotting non-extreme scene of my country made my will to be excluded even stronger, mostly for an over exposure of stinky songwriters and fake fashion-driven bands playing in my little boring city. Of course I stuck with the classics, Cripple Bastards, 80’s / 90’s hardcore and some bands were not included in my embargo. But once you enjoyed something, sooner or later it comes back. I have to say sorry to my best friend who tried to make me enjoy some bands, but I think sometimes you have to find out things by yourself. At first I got into the local noise / P.E. ring and it started to grow on me. So much great projects around me I wasn’t even aware of. Then I had a dinner with some very good friends of mine during the last fall and something snapped in my mind. My best friend has always been my musical companion and a great partner in exchanging music, but I got overwhelmed by a monolithic lack of taste and, mostly, will to find new sounds by those around me. I felt stuck. After that dinner with similar souls I kinda opened my mind while narrowing my approach. I stopped suggesting things to those who were clearly not interested in experimenting, I stopped feeling compelled to appreciate or give a good word about everything. If it sucks, it sucks. And stopped being influenced by some people’s beahviour or some gossip I don’t even give a fuck about. That really unlocked the Italian bands. One of the first band I decided to give a real good first listen was Hate & Merda. The two albums were great and I immediately got my hands on them but I got punished by my lack of attention and missed all the very cool limited editions of the then freshly released new EP. For my luck, sometimes fate works in favor of those who admit their mistakes and it got repressed on CD in December. My epiphany marked my return to attend live shows out of my city (promptly interrupted by COVID-19, of course) and at my first night out in Turin after a long time I took that CD with me as a return trip soundtrack.

“Un coltello sotto il letto divide il dolore in due” is housed in a pretty little digipack and features two songs. The title track (which translates to “A knife under the bed cuts pain in half”) and “Tutti i diavoli muoiono soli” (“All devils die alone”). The former is a classic Hate & Merda song. Everything is perfectly mounted over a series of addicting riffs that stick in your mind in an istant, pounding drums and desperate vocal approach that is not really dirty or growling, is like a clean, organic bark of despair. I think that their music falls something between sludgecore, post-something and a bit of drone here and there. Is just like forcing the heaviest incarnation of Integrity obsessively playing Hard To Swallow in a dark basement with a photo hangin on the wall featuring Pasolini putting a Gummo DVD in his player. Sounds weird but, well, try to figure it out. The second track is more into a low noise / ambient / droning vein, really setting the mood as the coda of the title track which is the main treat of this EP, hands down. It’s a really cathartic record, something that even if it’s quite predictable for those familiar with the band really stands out like a drop of blood in white milk. I got the chance to see them live years ago, but I was in full rejection and I don’t even remember how they played. The lesson here is simple. It’s absolutely wrong that you HAVE TO appreciate everything that comes out of your country, that’s pathetic. But it’s also pathetic to despise everything that comes out of your country. Don’t be stupid, listen, try to enjoy and than decide. This sounds obvious, but my story says it’s not.

~ by petetheripper on April 15, 2020.