GREEN LIKE JULY - Four-Legged Fortune

America is the stage of an old theater, where the human comedy is performed. For the title of their second album, Green Like July drew inspiration from one of those melodramas staged in the nineteenth century on the other side of the ocean: "The Flying Scud, Or A Four-Legged Fortune" by Dion Boucicault. A story of horse races and reversals of fortune, carrying the flavor of those twists of fate that can make life so surprising.

America is an embroidery from another era, found among the stalls of a flea market. To create the cover art for "Four-Legged Fortune", Milanese illustrator Olimpia Zagnoli drew on traditional folk textiles: the most effective way to depict the tribute to one's roots paid by Green Like July's songs.

America is a road without borders, to be traveled with your eyes fixed on the horizon. A journey that can lead three young men from Alessandria to find their own voice thousands of miles from home.

Her eyes were green as July, except when the red of tears dug into them: for a band that took its name from a line by Bright Eyes (straight from the pages of "Fevers And Mirrors"), recording an album at ARC Studios in Omaha, Nebraska is the realization of a dream. At first there were only the voice and guitar of Andrea Poggio and the bass of Nicola Crivelli: together, in 2005 the two recorded an essential, magnetic album titled "May This Winter Freeze My Heart". Poggio then moved to Glasgow for a year: "it was a crucial time", he recalls, "the people I met there were fundamental to my artistic growth". Upon his return to Italy, it was immediately clear to Green Like July that the time had come to take a step forward: and in Paolo Merlini's drums the band found the key to their growth.

From that point on, everything unfolded with incredible ease: it took just a few acoustic sketches sent by email to Jake Bellows of Neva Dinova to earn the band the surprising invitation to fly to Omaha and bring a new album to life. "The idea of recording a 'full', well-arranged album, and of doing it in Nebraska, almost scared us at first", the band admits. But once the inevitable reverential fear was overcome, every doubt quickly dissolved: "once we started recording, things unfolded in a completely spontaneous, fun and inspired way". Night after night, between a beer and a game of pool, new companions for the journey began joining along the way, first and foremost the Mogis brothers: Mike, the fourth member of Monsters Of Folk, and A.J., producer of some of the brightest releases in the Saddle Creek catalog, thus made their decisive contribution in helping Green Like July find the identity they had been searching for.

The unfurling hammond that opens the first track, “Flying Scud”, seems to drift in through the open windows of the pink house of the Band: the guitar splinters into Wilco-like fragments, while the vocals sound more lyrical than ever. “A choral album, melancholic and ironic”: that's how Green Like July describe “Four-Legged Fortune”. And indeed, while the lyrics sketch out autumn landscapes, drunken nights and lost loves, the easygoing alt-country swagger of tracks like “A Better Man” and “Hardly Thelma” pushes through like an invitation to find a reason to smile again. The songs' crisp, careful dressing shows off the mark of the most authentic American classicism. And yet, the impeccable penmanship of Poggio and co. occasionally leaves you missing that slightly naive, less polished roughness that ran through the band's debut.

Between the melodic unspooling of “No Light Will Shine On Me” and the duet with Kacynna Tompsett of Thunder Power on “Nothing Is Forever”, Mike Mogis's pedal steel adds a precious touch to the contours of “Jackson”: “it's the most beautiful gift we've ever been given”, Green Like July declare firmly, following the example of Dylan converted to the Nashville scene. And while “A Perfect Match” takes on the pathos of certain Okkervil River-style ballads, the western waltz of “St. John Of The Cross” leads back toward solo Conor Oberst. “Be careful 'cause life it is cruel”, is the warning from someone who no longer seems to expect anything new. But a living heart doesn't resign itself: “Don't follow the path you despise”. For Green Like July, staying true to yourself remains the thing most jealously worth protecting.

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02/03/2011