Tracey Denim

by bar italia

Overview

On Bedhead and Quarrel, bar italia's fusion of lo-fi, post-punk, and shoegaze was so mercurial that those albums often felt like compilations. On Tracey Denim, the London trio shakes things up by taking a more cohesive approach. In a number of ways, it's a stronger, clearer voice that Nina Cristante, Sam Fenton, and Jezmi Tarik Fehmi bring to their third full-length and Matador debut. Songs like Bedhead's "Rage Quit" were tantalizing in part because they were so short, but as on the band's excellent 2022 singles, Tracey Denim shows how ably bar italia can sustain a mood and add some polish to it. "Nurse!" is the perfect calling card for the group, building from slinky, looping verses to grinding, distortion-laden choruses as Cristante, Fenton, and Fehmi take turns singing about obsessively chasing a feeling with deceptive detachment. Though Tracey Denim is slightly more poised than bar italia's other albums, the spontaneous way its songs come together and fall apart keeps the appealing looseness that connects the band to the Pastels, Hood, and former Matador signees Quickspace. Over the course of the album, bar italia evoke other forebears: The dreamy brooding of "changer" echoes the glimpses of heartache on My Bloody Valentine's Isn't Anything. On "F.O.B.," yelped sentiments like "you only love me when I'm not around" call to mind the Cure. The longstanding comparisons to Blonde Redhead still ring true on songs such as "yes i have eaten so many lemons yes i am so bitte," but despite the similarly brittle melody and the resemblance Cristante's voice bears to Kazu Makino's frayed, wispy instrument, the portrait of domestic trauma that bar italia paint ("A million times I hear you crying/Covering your ears while they fight") is far grittier than the elder band's work. It's one of many moments where Tracey Denim's clearer sonics and songwriting let them put their own stamp on classic outsider melancholy. "Horsey Girl Rider" and "punkt" are ready to soundtrack dark nights of the soul; when Cristante sighs "When I'm alone/The world falls back into place" on "Missus Morality," it feels all too relatable. As much as they unify their sound on the album, the band also stretch out on its bookends, with the beguiling piano pop of "guard" and "maddington"'s loping rhythms and blossoming strings delivering two of the prettiest and most promising highlights. At once intricate and tossed-off, passionate and aloof, Tracey Denim's seeming contradictions and haunting mood elevate bar italia amongst their post-punk-reviving peers. It's an album that's complex enough for fans of the band's previous work, and just welcoming enough for a wider audience. ~ Heather Phares

Product Details

Release Date:	09/08/2023
Label:	Matador
UPC:	0191401195515
Rank:	34623

Tracks

1. guard
2. Nurse!
3. punkt
4. my kiss era
5. F.O.B
6. Missus Morality
7. yes i have eaten so many lemons yes i am so bitter
8. changer
9. Horsey Girl Rider
10. NOCD
11. best in show
12. Clark
13. harpee
14. Friends
15. maddington

Album Credits

Performance Credits

bar italia   Primary Artist