FLAME PARADE - A New Home

Active since 2012, the Tuscan band Flame Parade arrive at their first full-length album after a single and after shifting from a trio to a quartet. The band's repertoire can be filed under the so-called new folk scene, the one in which acts like Mumford & Sons, Noah & The Whale, Devendra Banhart, Beirut, Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros and many others try to revitalize the folk tradition with sounds that are at once a homage to it and a modernization of it.

Put this way, it might look like yet another Italian band belatedly jumping on a bandwagon that was fashionable a few years ago and now draws less attention from enthusiasts. But beyond the presumed intentions and the timing of the release, this record deserves appreciation, because taste, elegance and freshness are not lacking, and these are always welcome strengths, regardless of the context outlined above.

Take, for example, "Foxes' Funeral": the gentle rise and fall of sonic intensity and the marked harmonic dynamism, with instruments and vocal parts that enter and exit not merely to add or subtract but to build an effective whole, inevitably hit the mark. Then there's the crisp "Naivety", which doesn't settle for the classic open, clean electric guitar arpeggio but is shaped so that it is only one part of the whole, with an interesting construction both compositionally (the melody starts somewhat closed and then blossoms at the right moment) and sonically (the very spare first verse with a rhythm that pulses almost beneath the skin and, later on, greater definition, yet always with a certain restraint).

Even the calmer, more introspective moments hold notable touches: "Seahorse" and "Surrender" both start in a very classic way, but over the course of each track, effective brushstrokes arrive to make the whole intriguing and engaging. Overall, this is a work in which songwriting and artistic production (the latter overseen by Alberto Mariotti and the band itself) enhance each other, and the clear impression on listening is of a project with a very clear and, above all, focused overall vision, thanks to which inspiration and craftsmanship have been put to the best use.

So what if there is nothing truly new on this record and the influences are fairly obvious: Flame Parade deserve attention because they know what they want and also how to get it.

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09/01/2017