Matinée - These Days

by John Clarkson

published: 14 / 11 / 2014

Label: Neon Tetra Records
Format: CD

Innovative and unique post-punk and alternative rock on debut album from Italian group, Matinée

Review

Matinée are a group of Italian origins with a passion for British and American post-punk and alternative rock of the last thirty years. The four-piece, who are based now in East London, take their name from 'The Dark of the Matinée', Franz Ferdinand's Top Ten single of 2004, and have toured Italy in support of the Glaswegian indie rockers. Franz inevitably are a huge influence. Like them, Matinée specialise in brisk, brittle three minute new wave and alternative rock anthems. Yet, while Matinée openly nod to their influences, these are on the ten tracks of 'These Days', which is their debut album, often just simply starting points before they take their songs in a completely different direction. The synth-led opening track ‘The Bigger Picture’, which is sung by lead singer Luigi Tiberio initially through a voice distorter, recalls the early Human League in its jarring industrialism and angst, before erupting out in its second half into surging euphoria. The second track, ‘White Lies’, is a strident Killers-esque anthem, but with its duelling, razor-sharp guitars, extended drum rolls and a nerve-strewn, suitably theatrical vocal from Tiberio about the corroding of his mind by a now ex-girlfriend (“She is white lies rushing around in my brain”), Matinée bring to it once again uniqueness and their own vision. ‘City Lifestyle’ is the song that has the closest proximity to Franz Ferdinand, but beneath all the stuttering guitars there is some heartfelt balladering from Tiberio as he adjusts, after an unsure start, to his new life in London. “I love the night in London city because she makes me feel so high,“ he croons ecstatically. Best of all is ‘Nobody Like Me’, which at four minutes twenty seconds is the longest track on ‘These Days’. Recalling the Strokes initially with its winding guitar work, it explodes suddenly into a flurrying dual of stop-start guitars and a towering sing-a-long vocal from Tiberio which, at one level a paean to individuality, also finds him luxuriating in ridiculing himself. “There’s nobody, nobody, nobody like me,” he sings with both tight-paced irony and perfect melodrama. Matinée have with ‘These Days’ built on their musical influences, and then come up with something unique.

Track Listing:-

1 Bigger Picture
2 White Lies
3 These Days
4 Said I
5 City Lifestyle
6 All the Good Fella's
7 Nobody Like Me
8 Missing Pieces of a Jigsaw
9 If You're Gone
10 40 Years Old