For a band that worked within math-rock, which many consider to be the most limited of genres, Don Caballero never made the same album twice. Credit that accomplishment to the dual geniuses whose constant interpersonal tension powered and drove the band: drummer-cum-hulking brute Damon Che, and calc-minded guitar hero Ian Williams. Up until their final studio effort, American Don, Che and Williams continued to push and innovate upon an unparalleled brand of energetic, artistic and unpredictable math-rock. But like all good things that I never had the chance to see live, Don Cab came to a premature end, punctuated symbolically by a dramatic van wreck just before the band were to play their coda in Detroit. As they say, what burns never returns.
Since parting ways with Don Cab, Damon Che has teamed up with two veterans of the noise-rock scene-- guitarist Agostina Tilotta and vocalist Giovanna Cacciola of the Sicilian group Uzeda-- and bassist Matthew Taylor to form his new band, Bellini. After adding some songs, and producer Steve Albini (who previously worked on Don Cab's For Respect and American Don, and Uzeda's Different Section Wires), the quartet had recorded Snowing Sun. And despite the noteworthy artistic legacy preceding it, the record manages to set itself apart from its history and make a compelling statement of its own.
The general approach of Snowing Sun resembles the technicality of Don Cab, simplified and blended with the shrill tones and avant-garde delivery of Uzeda. The guitar/drum/bass interplay is tight, but far less painstakingly composed and complex than that of Don Cab, and far less frantic. What you have instead is something a bit rougher tonally, but easier on the attention span. Rather than seven different sections with five different riffs, four time-changes, and an unsettling morass of polyrhythms, Bellini hits you with only a few jagged, biting, hand-picked riffs. It's still herky-jerky, but you immediately get a feel for what the band is doing-- it doesn't require multiple listens to figure out.
With Bellini, Che isn't quite the focus of attention that he was with his former band; although he doesn't exactly stay in the pocket, his playing is much more restrained. The point instead seems to be to lock-in with Tilotta and Taylor, which they manage with great success on tracks like "Furious", which warms up slowly until the band reaches a rolling, mathy-Sabbath energy. Still, Che has his own reel of flailing highlights, as on "We Crossed the Ocean to See the Snowing Sun", where he swiftly pounds out a double-pedaled bridge into the final closing jam, and "The Best Song on the Starship", which itself closes with a full-band freak-out.
Much of the simplified approach can be blamed on the presence of a vocalist. After all, it's damn nigh impossible to sing-- even whistle-- along to math-rock. Not that Cacciola really sings. Hers is more of an accented, Björkish scream-sing approach, a theatrical vector for her oblique, poetic lyrics ("That's my offer, that's all I have/ Coral, starfishes, seahorses"; "It seems like blood, but it's the water of a flame/ It'll turn into skin and breath for my rebirth"). Because of her accent, Cacciola's bizarre lyrics are indecipherable without a lyric sheet. Oddly, though, it lends Bellini an inexplicable artistic credibility-- sort of like subtitles.
Besides for the aforementioned "We Crossed the Ocean" and "Furious", "Rut Row" and "Patience and Passion in Brown Gloves" stand out as bullseyes. "Rut Row" opens with a sharp, treble-heavy guitar riff and rolling, propulsive drum accompaniment, leaving little empty space. The busy opening sequence sets up a syncopated breakdown, with Cacciola shouting the appropriately aggressive chorus, "Out of here, out of his cage/ Totally naked, uncovered and insane." "Patience and Passion in Brown Gloves", meanwhile, winds through an off-center, midtempo math-verse until all four musicians find a funky lock-step to drive home a cathartic set of rhythmic jabs.
Put all of the pieces together, and this is one cohesive, coherent son of a bitch. Eccentric and avant-garde, with a kick in the ass courtesy of the drummer. It's an incredibly rare thing for ex-members of genre-defining bands to release records that rival the ones released by their former groups, but Snowing Sun has easily trumped anything Uzeda ever released, and it comes damn close to equaling Don Cab's earliest material. Provided that Bellini continue to refine and master their sound, they may prove to be more vital than either.
