Uzeda

Uzeda are back, more determined and vicious than ever. They take the Covoclub stage and immediately launch into a lava flow pouring out of a sonic guitar fired at the speed of light.

The songs are the familiar, road-tested ones from "Stella", "Different Section Wires" and the EP "4".

As usual, the sound is granite-hard and dark, at times unusually melodic. Giovanna Cacciola's worn, strained voice holds together Agostino Tilotta's spasmodic guitar and Raffaele Gulisano's geometric bass. Davide Oliveri's drumming, meanwhile, is a war machine with a martial gait, keeping the songs' rhythm and lending the whole thing a metallic sheen. The high point of the act belongs to songs like the neurotic "Surrounded", the exhausting emotional up-and-down of "Sleep Deeper", the sickly noise-blues of "Stomp", and the relentless "The Milky Way".

The impression is that the Catania quartet has now reached a turning point in their long career as standard-bearers of American-style noise. The dynamics are the classic ones, by now well established after years of indie apprenticeship, for one of the most credible European bands in this field. Sure, the reference points are the usual suspects: Jesus Lizard, Scratch Acid, Shellac and the like, but the Catania combo's main trait is inserting into this well-worn template some peculiar, off-kilter strokes of droning blues, which make them almost unique in the otherwise stifled world noise-rock landscape. This must be exactly what prompted a prickly, talented musician and producer like Steve Albini to adopt them as his favourites.

It's hard, then, to remain unmoved in the face of a stunning track like "Higher Than Me", a stunning display that holds within it a crystalline melody. Little diamonds set in the hardest marble there is, with Uzeda as miners armed with pickaxes working the raw material, drawing out pieces of music otherwise hidden from most.

Sure, they invent nothing new, and they know it; the models they clearly draw on have already said all there was to say in this field, but we honestly appreciate the effort our band makes to seem honest and consistent with what they do.

A set, then, that's good for our anxieties, if perhaps less so for our battered, bleeding ears — but paraphrasing an illuminating line from Emil M. Cioran, who said: "L'universo sonoro: onomatopea dell'indicibile, enigma disperato, infinito percepito, e inafferrabile… "Non appena se ne è provata la seduzione, non si progetta altro che di farsi imbalsamare in un sospiro", we gladly accept the challenge they pose us. And so the headache inflicted on our poor skulls becomes a redeeming feat of endurance. Undying resistance to the ugliness surrounding us. And a definitive love for these musicians, who on this night tended to our wounds.

Oh, I almost forgot: the encore consisted of a trio of unreleased songs that bode well for the near future. We await developments with a healthy dose of impatience…

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