Album Review: Bar Italia - The Twits
In their second album release this year, bar italia take their addictive slacker rock to new heights, forming a body of work that speaks for itself.
2023 has been a year to remember for bar italia. After leaving Dean Blunt’s World Music Group , the elusive trio - consisting of Nina Cristante, Jezmi Tarik Fehmi, and Sam Fenton - embraced a major indie label in the form of Matador Records. Preferring to be “boring than mysterious”, the same group whose identities were subject to speculation are now more than happy to show their faces. Since this transition, they’ve also operated in a work-like manner, treating listeners to their second album in the space of a year - The Twits.
Released in May, debut LP Tracey Denim (2023) worked as both a declaration of independence and a statement of intent, demystifying the band’s identity whilst championing more familiar sounds. Throughout its extensive tracklist, the London-based trio would shift between nocturnal chamber rock, gothic post-punk, and muddied shoegaze, in a way that tastefully built on their World Music EPs - Quarrel (2020) and Bedhead (2021). With repeated listens, the album’s slippery appropriation of various genres revealed itself to be something far more intricate.
The Twits playfully engages the listener through the same musical literacy. Take, for example, the opening track ‘my little tony’ and its fuzzed-out combination of psychedelic and slacker rock. Swirling, feedback-laden guitar riffs maintain a forward momentum throughout, whilst Nina stabilises the composition with nonchalant vocals, stating: “Your pretentious ways / made me die a little”. Whilst much of The Twits’ lyrical content appears to be aimed at a former partner, there’s also a layer of self-deprecation here that compliments the band’s desire to let loose.
The urban psychodrama that Nina, Jezmi, and Sam often depict in their work is more apparent in the depressive follow-up cut, ‘Real house vibes (desperate house vibes)’. Borrowing from Tracey Denim, the abundance of cringe-inducing song titles seems to function as a deflection from the rather intense material. In the case of ‘Real house vibes’, a morose atmosphere is felt in the washed-out guitar riff straight out of The Cure’s Pornography (1982), with Nina detailing the breakdown of a relationship. Nina’s central line - “I can’t just pick up a story and make it the whole of who I am” - not only works on a personal level, but speaks to the band’s further willingness to deconstruct their previous image.
Alongside self-reflection, relationship turmoil seems to frame much of the lyrical content, with The Twits referring to an infamously dysfunctional couple. In most songs, a relationship without balance is described, with the retort formed in Sam’s androgynous vocals, or Jezmi’s unfiltered yelps. Through these vocal dynamics, The Twits becomes something of a breakup album that evades clear narrative structure. Likewise found in the music of former collaborator Dean Blunt, particularly The Redeemer (2013), relationship struggles ultimately work as lyrical surrogates rather than fully-developed portraits.
With the wider composition in focus, The Twits develops Tracey Denim’s slacker elements and 90s guitar sounds by embracing more open-ended song structures. Tracks such as ‘hi fiver’ and ‘Brush w Faith’ replicate familiar sonic textures, but create a slow-moving atmosphere that contrasts the former album’s bite-sized approach. Similarly, ‘world’s greatest emoter’ mirrors the noise-rock euphoria of Denim’s ‘friends’, but forms a more effective crowd pleaser.
Most captivating, perhaps, is the incorporation of Western genre elements. In ‘Twist’, a Morricone-esque riff broodingly compliments the lyrical exploration of a doomed relationship - “It was either me or them, and he was them”. The result is a monochrome canvas made up of tumbleweeds, deserted shacks, and broken hearts, aided by buzzing guitars and defiant vocals. ‘Jelsy’ exudes a similar quality but dresses the confessional structure with an extra layer of melancholy. This bluesy chamber-piece is defined by crestfallen guitars, noir-like vocals, and ominous splashes of piano, making for the band’s greatest achievement yet.
As well as embracing more adventurous sounds, these songs revel in their understated theatricality, imbuing the band’s detached style with a sense of immediacy. Without these tropes, however, especially when recycling familiar sounds, the formula risks fatigue. Lacking the songwriting edge that distinguished Tracey Denim’s deep cuts, the likes of ‘Calm down with me’ and ‘Hi fiver’ are static in their mid-tempo, post-punk nihilism. The same lethargy permeates the closing cut ‘bibs’, failing to match the bittersweet bliss of ‘Maddington’.
Like Denim, there are also minor mixing issues throughout. For the most part, bar italia’s commitment to lo-fi production has complimented the self-reflexive songwriting and strong atmospherics. In some tracks, however, the tendency to compress the material takes away from the finer compositional details. Take, for example, ‘sounds like you had to be there’, resembling Denim’s more effective songwriting sequences (see: ‘Missus Morality’). The song’s portrait of existential dislocation is realised through a powerful mixture of shouts and whispers, but lacks a cutting edge due to the nondescript guitar presence and understated percussion. Ultimately, this imbalance subdues the intensity of what is otherwise a standout track.
With that said, The Twits is a genuinely addictive listen that reveals itself with each new spin. Building on the vampiric slacker rock of Tracey Denim, the band further showcase their unique chemistry whilst moving their sound into new territory. Naturally, the transition from World Music recluses to Matador headliners entailed some uncertainty regarding their future direction. The Twits puts these worries to bed, however, by replacing the trio’s mysterious image with a body of work that speaks for itself.
Note: Thank you to Matador Records for kindly providing a press release.