Connections, endless connections.
So, most of my discoveries of new artists to follow and new albums to talk about come from connections.
Network connection and related connections with friends across the Ocean.
They can be friends, fans like myself, of independent music and so they suggest me new songs to listen to or unknown musicians to follow or directly artists friends who in turn have friends to listen to.
You will understand that being behind everyone and doing justice to them is sometimes really difficult, especially for those who, like me, do not do it for work, but only for passion.
The artist I’m talking about today I met her through my friend from Texas Kayla Jane (which I told you about here https://www.trexroads.com/filthy-hands-kayla-jane-2021-english/ ) after seeing and hearing her play together in the newborn all-female band Billie Jeans, of which, incidentally, I look forward to an album.
Alli Mattice has a voice that struck me immediately and I immediately started to look for news about her and I discovered that she had not yet released any single.
I settled for her live performances in Texas clubs and I must say that the desire to hear where they would have taken her of the autographed songs has grown, hearing her sing fantastic covers.
In Texas, you know, musical talent is really thriving and music is everywhere.
You grow up listening to it, you grow up breathing it and savoring it, let alone growing up in a family where both parents are musicians and even friends.
She’s not a novice, she’s been around Texas clubs and clubs since 2010, but, she says, she’s been writing songs since she was 5. Five, you got it.
I must say that I was really curious to hear this debut and already from the cover we understand what is the musical direction and philosophy that guided her in the recording studio.
It refers to a period of great musical ferment and energy and with these 10 songs it expresses just that spirit: the Summer of Love has never been so close.
Not only because the cover portrays her drawn as a novel Janis Joplin, among flowers, symbols and Volkswagen vans, but above all in the music and lyrics that, in a fresh and original way, bring us back in that historical moment, at least for a moment.
I don’t want to be blasphemous or make comparisons that are never correct, but the spirit and that energy remind me of the first steps of the Texas singer par excellence: Janis, in fact.
As with her music, cataloging the music of the Alli Mattice Band is difficult: an energetic and successful mix of blues, rock, soul and country. I can only envy those who can hear these pieces live. It’s gonna be a real soul fire.
To realize it just press play and hear the first song Dead Weeds: keyboards and guitars from the 70s groove and the voice of Alli intense, sensual and so damn exciting.
The title track seems to come from an album of the summer of ’67 and the video, which you can find on Youtube, is there to remind us.
Guitars, keyboards and lots of fun, the solo then is so blues rock sharp, vintage and modern at the same time.
The album’s first single, Sold Out the World, begins in an almost gothic way with keyboards and has an epic recording.
Mattice’s voice is velvet and the sound is a rock where the piano has a fundamental role and the rhythm beats growing along with the singing. Very beautiful.
Guitars and grooves and here is Stupid Angel, a rock blues that the sensual voice of Alli softens, but where the rhythm is pulsating and a purple cloud always coming from the golden years of rock, hovers over our heads.
The songs are so modern and old at the same time, to catapult us like in a time machine 50 years ago, but without being copies.
The splendid voice of Alli Mattice also likes in the rock ballad with radio appeal and nostalgic of Super Bowl Sunday: perhaps the Sunday with the greatest memories of the year of the American audience.
Down the windows, sun and wind on your face and away to a never-ending road, this is what you want to do listening to these songs.
The solo is beautifully set in the middle of the piece.
The work of guitars and keyboards is really remarkable and the band chosen by Mattice to accompany her in this adventure for her debut, is really talented.
The closing of the album is entrusted to a song that begins acoustic but with an irresistible groove rhythm, What it so Wrong? with lashes of electric guitar and keyboard so damn seventies that grow up to a relaxed and almost dreamlike bridge that enhances, if ever needed, a great singer.
A really pleasant discovery this band and this artist: Alli Mattice has a superb talent, a positive energy envelops her music and, with her exciting voice, she manages to carry it in these 10 songs. A fresh, fun, vintage result, but absolutely original.
Take the Alli Mattice Band’s Volkswagen van and race this highway from Texas to California, through the sounds of an unforgettable summer, and treat yourself to a journey to do and redo, with a mix of the best music that those years have given us, played in a personal way and never banal and sung by a voice that you will hardly forget.
Good listening,
Claudio “Trex” Trezzani by http://www.ticinonotizie.it
(in Ticino Notizie web site you can find original italian version of this article)
