DEAD MAN WATCHING - Dead Man Is Coming To Town

We left the Verona-based trio Dead Man Watching a couple of years ago, at the time of their self-released debut EP, as the result of a chance encounter between musicians united by a shared passion for intimate songwriting and for the slower-paced strands of American alternative rock between the 90s and the 2000s.

We find them today, still in the same independent, homemade form and with the same lineup, now consolidated as a self-sufficient artistic project and firmly headed towards the making of an album that, while waiting to see the light of day and perhaps catch the attention of some label, is now preceded by a new six-track EP, which crystallizes the band's current state of the art, marking their gradual evolution towards an auteur indie-rock poised between the subtly bitter flavour of contemplative abandonment and the melodic immediacy of college radio.

This second element represents the main turning point compared to the debut, since "Dead Man Is Coming To Town" does keep firmly in place the clear references of its predecessor to the work of bands such as Codeine and Early Day Miners, yet spells them out in a more direct and self-aware style, whose gradual maturation shows through in the soft yet anguished vocals of band leader John Mario. And it's precisely his finely calibrated delivery that acts as a balancing factor across many of the tracks, offsetting with more measured tones the indolent acoustic melancholy of the opening "Everything Everyone" (crowned by a bluesy harmonica), and turning softer wherever carefully fragmented electric textures reminiscent of Karate take centre stage, alongside a generally more straightforwardly "rock" approach, which even spills over into the pop-rock immediacy of "Love In The Afternoon".

Dead Man Watching, however, don't lose the charm of guitars with a mournful circularity, which run beneath the surface of most of the EP's tracks, right up to enveloping, in full Early Day Miners style, the sparse electronic touches of "One Day Left", which stand as the further standout feature of this new, brief work. Precisely because it's marked by such an enviable variety of sounds and solutions, "Dead Man Is Coming To Town" announces itself, right from its title, as a tantalizing preview of a future work on a larger scale, which in the meantime offers a broad showcase of the potential of the Verona band, confirming themselves as one of the liveliest and most expansive forces in the Italian underground scene.

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16/12/2009