There’s only so many times you can mention that you really miss the ’90s before people begin to ask if you’ve considered buying a flannel shirt and playing Singles in a loop. Grunge nostalgia is an entire industry now. Half the bands who do it sound like they’re painstakingly replicating a museum exhibit titled ‘Kurt Cobain Once Existed.’ The other half just remember why the music mattered. YACOVELLI fortunately, are among them.
“Since Emilia,” the fourth single from the New York neo-grunge and punk project of long-time underground musician Alex Yacovelli, isn’t quite a revival, but it’s more of a spirited conversation with an era that never fully left the artist’s bloodstream. It’s got all the necessary accoutrements- drop-tuned guitars, thick, murky riffs, cryptic lyrics that’ll keep you up all night wondering what the story is-but it’s also full of pleasant surprises.
The down-tuned rhythm guitars punch through the speakers like several hundred pounds of sheer, satisfying crunch reminiscent of the glory days when rock would remind us that a riff could punch through an amplifier. And you can absolutely feel it in this song, which pulls influences from stuff like Soundgarden, Foo Fighters, and even in a surprising but effective way, the odd, inexplicably upbeat melancholy that can be found in a Weezer song. In an age of careful influences checklists,
Beyond the instrumental component, “Since Emilia” can serve as a puzzle box. The song, as Yacovelli himself puts it, “is like a poetic riddle”, and that’s about right. He doesn’t so much write a narrative as he creates an emotional landscape filled with clues for the listener to decipher. In an era where many songs spoon-feed their listeners information, it is refreshing to hear Yacovelli offer something more mysterious.
Even the production choices reflect the understanding of a great many D.I.Y. Rock musicians: the cleaner the music, the greater the personality. His recordings possess the perfect degree of rawness. Everything sounds just slightly on the edge of collapse, yet somehow remains entirely contained and coherent.
The strength of “Since Emilia” is its core principle. It remembers that grunge isn’t about how you feel miserable; it’s about how you feel human.
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About the Author
A tenured media critic known working as a ghost writer, freelance critic for various publications around the world, the former lead writer of review blogspace Atop The Treehouse and content creator for Manila Bulletin.
