reviews / 2016

WINTERPILLS - Love Songs

Name: WINTERPILLS – Love Songs
Item: Love Songs
Rating: 5.5
Author: Lorenzo Righetto

2016 (Signature sounds)

alt-folk-pop-rock

by Lorenzo Righetto

5.5

È più che altro per dovere di cronaca che va segnalata la nuova uscita dei Winterpills, la band del Massachussetts, giunta al sesto disco, a quattro anni dall’ultimo inedito e due dalla racccolta di cover “Echolalia”. Cattivi auspici o meno, questi anni di attesa hanno prodotto al massimo il tanto paventato “ritorno alle origini” – come spesso accade, soprattutto sulla carta.

The drier, more melancholy folk-pop of Elliott Smith ("The Swimmers And The Drowned"), which recalls the recently reissued self-titled debut, and in general a more intimate atmosphere ("Diary, Reconstructed") or one that's more "true" to its alternative roots (also in the power-pop of "Celia Johnson") and less sunny than on the previous record, fail to live up to their promise, merely repeating what's already been said, the same chiaroscuro, the same narrative flavor of Philip Price's songs.

It might briefly satisfy devotees of '90s American alternative singer-songwriting, with its lopsided big ballads ("Wanderer White"), but in substance it's only a pale shadow of what's already been done.

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25/03/2016

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This article is an English translation of the original Italian text by Lorenzo Righetto, published on OndaRock.it. It was translated with the help of artificial intelligence, under the editorial responsibility of OndaRock's editor-in-chief, Claudio Fabretti.

Read the original in Italian · About the English edition

Tracklist

1. Incunabula
2. Wanderer White
3. Celia Johnson
4. Freeze Your Light
5. New England Deluge
6. Swimmers And The Drowned
7. He Grew A Wall
8. Chapel
9. Bringing Down The Body Count
10. Diary, Reconstructed
11. It Will All Come Back To You

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Winterpills

Passion and intellect

The story of Philip Price's band is a quiet, moving one, told through a guitar you'd love to pick up and play yourself. Winterpills are the kind of band you'd keep to yourself, your secret favorite: makers of an intellectual, unassuming pop that is also deeply passionate and "reckless" - a sound in which the most disparate influences coexist, from Simon And Garfunkel to Fleetwood Mac, by way of the Beatles and Neil Young. And their mark on today's American indie scene has yet to be fully recognized...