There's
nothing like a good surprise. I've had many good surprises coming to me via the
post from our southern friends all around Italy. Over the years, I've been
surprised how many Italians and Italian bands in particular seem to know our
site, but I'm not complaining!
When I received not only seven-track mini-album 'I Corti Di Verbo Nero' but also
the four-track CD 'Disco Samurai' by guitarist/singer Alessandro Bevivino, I was
thought it was rather cool. An acoustic album with a metal attitude and set as a
spaghetti western soundtrack. That sort of stuff makes curious!
I liked what I heard, but there was something wrong and I couldn't quite put my
finger on what it was. I listened to the two CD's quite a few times, and then,
one day when I took my eleven-year-old daughter home from her double bass
lessons (yeah, she's that kind of eleven-year-old), and we listen to
Alessandro's music, she goes: 'He repeats himself a lot, doesn't he, dad? It's
as if he couldn't come up with any lyrics.'
Bingo.
That's it.
Bevivino has an obvious talent for playing his guitar and the will it takes to
get his sounds out there, but for all that's worth, he need to work on the
lyrics. Acoustic music has a tendency to sound slightly repetitive unless you're
a really good songwriter, and if your lyrics become repetition too, you're not
really making the grade.
As I said, I liked it from the outset, but in the end, this doesn't quite work.
More work, more songwriting, more diversity, please.
