Cosmetic - Indie-rock in comic-strip form

Late Nineties, a small town in central Italy, four kids united by a love of rock music. How many stories start this way? And how many of these stories manage to cross the narrow borders of the place where they're born, to become the shared heritage of an entire community? Cosmetic's artistic arc begins with the same premises as thousands of others, but it soon makes its way into the Italian independent scene, where it becomes a cult name. Credit goes to a band that has managed to evolve while keeping a recognizable style and a fluid songwriting approach, made of opposites that meet and shake hands.

Four kids, as we said: all between 16 and 17 years old, in love with the rock of Nirvana , going simply by the names Balzo (vocals and guitar), Ico (bass), Bart (today guitar and vocals, initially drums) and Cava (guitar). They start playing together in 1996 in their rehearsal room in the Romagna hinterland, and from the outset decide to combine two traits that seem hard to reconcile: a sound echoing the best late-century alt-rock and lyrics written in Italian. They thus begin recording their first original songs in self-produced fashion, but for the earliest home recordings (Sylicon Valley from 2001 and Demo from 2002) you have to wait for the new millennium: the latter is in fact presented at the Mei festival in Faenza that same year. The five songs move from grunge sonorities and build their game on the propulsive force of the rhythm section.

While the four are especially busy on the live front, they also keep making progress in the studio. In 2003 they put out 3, containing six new songs, in 2004 comes another self-produced EP, Gorolo Corse, their first release for the home-grown label Tafuzzy Rec, and finally the following year sees the release of Baia dei Puzzle, six tracks that further highlight Cosmetic's will to roam the territories of American alternative rock, filling it with Italian-language lyrics depicting adolescent stories somewhere between serious and tongue-in-cheek. Compared to its predecessor, the new work actually stands out for a greater variety of approaches, spanning everything from punk-rock ("Nuovissima") to ballads ("Baia dei Puzzle").

The time is now ripe for the release of their debut full-length, which will see the light in 2007 on the home-grown label Tafuzzy Records under the title Sursum Corda. In the meantime Cosmetic have been reduced to a trio, since Cava left "due to artistic visions no longer in line with the band's", as they would explain. The approaches tested during the years of sonic apprenticeship here find a more mature and polished outcome, though the stylistic evolution is still very much underway. The record's main reference point is in fact shoegaze in the vein of Jesus & Mary Chain and My Bloody Valentine, influences that will carry significant weight throughout the Romagna quartet's entire discography, albeit in varying doses. The opening "Acaciarosa" already tells the whole story: the guitars spread out like a deafening carpet while the falsetto vocal helps create an even more disorienting effect over the song's more than five minutes. "Meglio così" takes on a more fully-realized song structure, as well as a chorus that, emerging from equally massive riffs, opens up to a first genuine hint of melody. "Sulle riviste" changes register entirely, indebted to a punk-rock that's sharp in form and unsettling in content (“sulle riviste che ho/ voglio cambiare i titoli/ possono sembrare adatti ai loro scopi mobili”). The title track "Sursum Corda" veers in turn toward Sonic Youth, "Pronto a sorridere" turns into an acoustic minimalism with a lysergic aftertaste. Towards the end, the more than six minutes of "Il declino" relaunch the shoegaze formula with less force and inspiration than in the previous chapters.

Sursum Corda turns the spotlight of press and public onto Cosmetic, who soon become one of the names to watch on the Italian scene. Right after the album's release, guitarist Motobecane joins the band, and a few months later Balzo and Ico leave, immediately replaced by Mone and Emily, still members of the band today. The upheaval within the band is absorbed without any major sonic disruption, thanks in part to Bart, the only remaining founding member, the author of the lyrics but also the guarantor of a sonic continuity linking the original line-up with the newcomers.

And indeed, right on schedule, the fine promise of the debut finds further confirmation in the second album Non siamo di qui, released in 2009, marking the start of a fruitful collaboration with one of the cornerstone labels of Italian indie-rock: La Tempesta. A stamp of approval that legitimizes the still-brief but already significant path of the renewed Romagna combo, which for its part confirms its desire to keep playing with genres and sounds. A desire that's clear right from the opening "Bolgia celeste", a finely crafted piece of pop-rock steeped in an unprecedented, languid serenity. Shoegaze echoes resurface in "Sangue + sole", but the anger that poured out in "Sursum Corda" is replaced by a pursuit of melody that shapes the chorus. With every song the band shifts a notch within the landscape of global alt-rock, and so "Via Maj" opts for a sort of hybrid between punk and sonic rock. "Ragazzo Crudele" is another dive into acoustic solutions with an emo aftertaste, but compared to past efforts it's fitted with more pronounced arrangements. "Carlo ha detto" is perhaps the album's high point: the lyrics once again sketch out stories of restless youth, and the punk-rock is streaked with finely crafted psychedelic pop. "It was too important," Cosmetic explain when presenting the album, "for us to talk about the unease that many of us and our friends feel in facing this world we seem to have ended up in by chance. We don't speak the language of grown-ups, we don't do things their way. We can't find values to devote ourselves to body and soul, and the tradition we'd like to cling to has been hollowed out by consumerism and lost somewhere in nowhere." Rounding out the record is also a wild near-seven-minute ride called "Crostata" and a psychedelic closer with the mile-long title "In ogni momento aspetto qualcuno che arrivi a distrarmi".

Besides marking the band's debut on La Tempesta, Non siamo di qui finds Cosmetic wielding a more flexible, sharper sound, partly thanks to a production that, while still stubbornly homemade, seems to have finally found its footing.

The new decade opens with the EP In ogni momento (2011), again released on La Tempesta as a free download. Five songs, two of them barely a minute and a half long, tell the story of the quartet's definitive stylistic maturity. The first two tracks on the record, "In ogni momento" and "Prima o poi", are the best indie-rock songs Cosmetic have written to date: the latter in particular stands out for its perfect balance of rock grit and melody, with lyrics tailor-made to channel the frustration of generations raised in the shadow of the great crisis ("ma ci ricorderemo tutto prima o poi" carries the whiff of cold-blooded revenge). "Mancante" is a brief arpeggio backed by synths, while "Non siamo di qui" borrows the title of the previous album and amounts to little more than a sketched-out verse over which an imaginary dialogue unfolds, once again addressing the inadequacy of one's own condition. As for the closing "Thomas", the bassline sends the song off into uncharted new wave/shoegaze territory.

The following year, Conquiste confirms Cosmetic's artistic growth and places them among the heavyweights of the Italian independent scene. The album, recorded at Waves Studio in Pesaro with the help of Paolo Rossi, again blends shoegaze textures with pop moods: what makes the difference is the quality of the songs, their direct attack, and the perfect balance between rock's roughness and the delicacy of the melodies and lyrics. "Lenta Conquista" is bedroom emo-punk. "Sitar" rides on riffs straight out of the Stone Roses school. "Scisma" surfs a new sonic wave, while "Prima o poi" is an incisive mid-tempo number with a shoegaze aftertaste and lyrics as cryptic as ever (“siete riusciti a farci diventare come dei nemici/ ricominciamo, la crisi passa e ci ritelefoneremo/ ma ci dimentichiamo tutto prima o poi”). "Per un amico" builds gradually until it explodes into one of the finest riffs the Romagna combo has ever produced. "La fine del giorno", embellished by the voice of Costanza of Be Forest, is another splendid generational anthem ("arrendersi per vincere / un passo indietro, avanti tre") delivered in a danceable indie-rock. Cosmetic's more intimate side resurfaces in the precious ballad "Calla", while the psychedelic streak returns in the long, sprawling "Colonne d'errore", suspended between shoegaze verses and alt-pop dissolves. "Lo spavento" closes the record with pastel-toned lo-fi pop.

Conquiste marks Cosmetic's artistic summa and, at the same time, the end of a journey begun more than a decade earlier. It is with this record that the so-called "comic-book trilogy" comes to a close, named for the illustrated covers that accompanied the first three albums. And it is with this record, too, that Motobecane's time in the band ends: his departure, which took place in 2013, was temporarily covered by Sergio, while Erica of Be Forest stood in for Emily on a provisional basis. In the meantime, the band released a second free-download EP titled Arnia/Provincia: "An EP with two souls," Cosmetic explain, "and once again everything manages to fit together. Arnia is the accusation, Provincia is contemplation." Four tracks, roughly eleven minutes in total, in which Cosmetic try their hand at hardcore for the first time ("In ritirata"), launch into pop-punk arpeggios ("Provincia"), flirt with a gentle psychedelia ("Arnia"), and bid farewell to Motobecane with a thirty-second riff written by the man himself.

After releasing the EP and saying goodbye to Motobecane, Cosmetic decide to take "a period of meditative pause and reassessment". A brief one, as usual, though. It happens that Bart listens to the new Granturismo album and calls Claudio Cavallaro to congratulate him: and so, almost by chance, the latter offers to produce Cosmetic's next album, which takes the name Nomoretato.

This is without doubt Cosmetic's freest work, the one least bound by formal conventions: the rock grit of the past becomes an occasional backdrop, the liquid riffs follow less predictable paths, and psychedelia becomes a hazy travelling companion weaving through the songs and lending them three-dimensional atmospheres.

The pop vein flows into the gentle midtempo of "Nelle mani giuste", perhaps the (deliberately) sharpest track of the bunch, shy in its invitation to dance on the rubble of a revolution still in draft form (“non mi importa di svoltare/ non pensate di poter fermare/ qualcosa che può scoppiare solo se si trova nelle mani giuste”), yet decisive as it launches into one of the finest choruses ever written by the Italian combo. The gradual build of "Venue" ensnares with its languid but inexorable progress: one of the album's best cuts. "Occhi gialli sull'isola del mondo" plunges its indie-rock into a lysergic instrumental interlude, while "Nomoretato" flares up with new sonic explosions.

Midway through the album, "La stanza del figlio" and "Non ritornerò" pick up acoustic textures to venture into singer-songwriter territory, and prove equally convincing. The instrumental "Continuum" shows off the band's most psychedelic side, while "Rocapina" and "Bordonero" break free entirely from traditional song structure, alternating acoustic passages with riffs drawn from 90s alt-rock and brief psych-pop surges that flow into the ethereal closer "Reprise".

The attempt to chart new paths without losing sight of their own sonic identity is not only intriguing but, above all, successful: Cosmetic have once again squared the circle, putting together one of the best Italian albums of the year, a new classic for a scene that all too often lacks ideas and fresh proposals.

At the start of 2017 Cosmetic resurface with their fifth album CORE. The lineup is now down to a trio, since Ivan has in the meantime decided to focus entirely on his Urali project. Bart, Mone and Emily therefore change direction, abandoning the lo-fi, psych atmospheres of "Nomoretato" in favour of an energetic, direct alt-rock that recalls in particular the American sound of the Nineties.

What's missing, above all, are the melodies and the solutions adopted on previous albums, which gave the whole sonic architecture more room to breathe. Cosmetic also venture down other paths, brushing against hardcore-punk in the breathless sprint of "Schiaffino!", while "Quel poco di buono (che avevi fatto)" recalls early Verdena and "La linea si scrive da sola" embraces emo sounds.

The imagery flowing from the lyrics also continues to draw on post-adolescent themes, though - perhaps because the years inexorably march on - with lyrics that are more didactic and less heartfelt than in the past ("non mi sembra fortunato chi non ha sudato niente / solo perché sostenuto dai due cognomi di un parente", from "1986").

While "CORE" on one hand recaptures the band's early rock spirit, it also marks a clear step backwards in songwriting, with tracks decidedly less brilliant than those found on previous studio works - the very ones that made Cosmetic one of the most interesting bands in Italy over the last decade.

In spring 2019 Cosmetic return with the album Plastergaze. The sonic blend is the usual one, a midpoint between alt/indie-rock, emo/dream-pop and shoegaze that creates atmospheres suspended in a lo-fi limbo, out of which voices emerge to tell stories of post-adolescent life (Alice's contributions become more prominent on this latest album), amid guitar riffs and feedback and synthetic interventions.

"In faccia al mondo" is exactly the kind of song we expect from Cosmetic, with that knowing, laid-back stride that gives rise to choruses of real impact. The tempo changes in "Crociera" make the tracklist even more varied, though perhaps the real novelties are to be found in the melodic arcs of "Scranio" and "Un litigio", where the vocal lines seem to claim more space than usual. It's a shift that can be felt elsewhere in the second half of the record too, as in "Orizzonte", which in turn sheds much of the noise to trace a path we might loosely call "cleaner". Also notable is "Una razza minore", perhaps the track where the synths take over at the guitar's expense.

While not quite on the level of other albums in Cosmetic's now substantial discography, "Plastergaze" is a work rich in points of interest, full of tracks that reward repeated listens before they can be fully appreciated. More broadly, credit must finally be given to this band from Romagna for charting a thoroughly anomalous and distinctive path within the Italian indie macrocosm: peculiarities that have helped make them one of the finest acts of the last fifteen years.

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