DEAD CAT IN A BAG - We’ve Been Through

Delta blues, folk and rock in its broadest sense have been part of the popular tradition for decades, a tradition that keeps renewing itself, crossing the geographical boundaries where it was born, with similar idioms constantly updated to the times and to different popular cultures. Dead Cat In A Bag are a trio from Piedmont who use the same traditional language to speak in Italy in 2022, through the same blues grammar that a centuries-old history shares with electric folk in the post-Dylan tradition, a story that spans sixty years.

The band brings the sounds of the Texan desert to Italy, the gravelly voices born of thousands of cigarettes in the manner of Tom Waits, the typical scenery of cursed blues, and stages it all in a provincial little theatre to dazzle its audience. On “We’ve Been Through” the journey is genuine, moving from the atmospheres of “Twin Peaks” and Julee Cruise's “Between Day And Night” to the desert folk with drunken singing of “Evil Plans”, from the almost hard rock, Zeppelin-like intro of “Wayfaring Stranger” to the brief, sad lullaby of “Hunter's Lullaby”.

For the rest, it proceeds like a compendium of great songwriters, with echoes of both Leonard Cohen and Neil Young, even the very latest David Bowie, or perhaps a voice that recalls the legendary Billie Holiday on “Duet For Nothing”.

If there's anyone who thinks tradition is just a dusty diary to be studied like a textbook, there are bands like Dead Cat In A Bag who prove the opposite: by updating and personalizing the sounds of tradition, you can stay modern forever.

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20/12/2022