New - CUT - Dead City Nights - LP

"If you've not witnessed CUT storming on stage in the last 25 years I'm not sure you've witnessed rock n' roll in its purest form, an onslaught of concrete punk, garage belters and the necessary dose of sleaze and bravado when the song calls for it. Two guitars, one drum kit, that's been their formula forever, low-end/high-end, angular, in-yer-face on paper but subtle in execution, confrontational at first but with a heart that looms large, soulful yet fierce. Dead City Nights is no exception and maybe marks their highest achievement, chock-full of signature bangers and the usual dose of irony. Carlo, Ferruccio, and Tony are back it, move out of their way! The opening verse of 'Mr. Spaceman', taken from the Byrds' Fifth Dimension, describes very well the predominant mood among us during the last two/three years, the time period in which the Dead City Nights songs were born. Now 16 years ago (OMG!), in a song called 'Nightride' we sang 'the city is our playground at night' -- and instead while writing these 13 songs we saw our cities shut down, becoming ghost towns just to quote the Specials . . . Dead City Nights is our seventh album: unlike Second Skin -- its predecessor, which saw the participation of many friends and guests -- it is a record made by the three of us only with some intervention by our producer Bruno Germano to enrich some of the arrangements. Even though we loved and still love Second Skin and the sessions that led to its creation, for this album we wanted to go back to the way of working that has always characterized us: the three of us alone, in the rehearsal room, arguing about every single riff and drum groove until we reach a result that satisfied us all. After all, the events we were talking about above would not allow us to work differently, even if we wanted to. The big difference compared to almost everything else in our discography is that -- inevitably -- we haven't been able to break in the songs live, as we usually do before entering the studio . . . Dead City Nights is also our first album with Antonio 'Tony Booza' on drums (The Titbits, The Boozers, The Narcotics): once again, welcome home Tony!" Ferruccio Quercetti, December 2022