It is pretty much accepted that the international language of rock, like the international language of seafaring, is English. Whilst the latter goes back to days of Empire where Britannia ruled the waves, the former is doubtless due to the music that came from across the pond in that there America, and then spread across the globe. There are any number of bands from non-English speaking lands filling my music collection be they German, Greek, Swedish, or even hailing from the famously Anglophobic France, so it is refreshing to receive an album from an act that doesn’t feel the need to ditch their mother tongue, Italy’s own I Barbari with ‘Supernove Che Fanno Bang!’ being one of those rare cases.

The album starts with the anything but barbaric (yes, the band name translates as “The Barbarians”, so apologies for the pun) ‘Solo’, a slice of rock that throbs with the sound of a motorbike cruising across the desert; yes, the band stick to Italian for the lyrics, but the music clearly owes a major debt to the music scene of California’s arid landscape. The title track ‘Supernove Che Fanno Bang!’ comes next, slowing the pace and lowering the tone to flood the speakers with a fuzzy goodness to carry the listener into space, allowing them experience the titular celestial event in a suitably THC drenched style, whilst follow up ‘Ciò che non è stato’ travels an altogether bluesier path, albeit the opening crawl grows and develops into something far trippier.

‘Seppelliti dalle orme’ follows in the footsteps of such doom laden ancestors as Saint Vitus with its dragging stomp, the same fateful sound bleeding through into ‘ll Karma non mente’ laden as it is with bass heavy tones, slogging drum beat, and a guitar solo that sounds as if it were stolen from the Dave Chandler book of licks. A more upbeat stoner rock feel returns for ‘Caduti dalla civiltà’, the munchies that the good stuff bring on being fed by the meaty delivery of ‘Generazione Kebab’, and again, I apologise for the pun, before the motorbike roar of the album opener suddenly makes a welcome return with ‘Improvvisamente’. The whole album is then closed off by the ‘Sarò il tuo problema’, a number that has a comparatively delicate and restrained opening that threatens to almost fade away before a sonic wall of guitars suddenly slaps the listener out of any reverie they may have drifted into and brings them back to earth with a thump.

Whilst I’ll be utterly honest and say I was only able to grab the occasional snatch of what was being sung about, and that only through a combination of having Latin forced on me at school nearly four decades ago and many years watching “Giallo” movies, it didn’t really matter. Hell, there are writers on this site that you are so kindly perusing who listen to bands that ostensibly sing in English but actually produce incomprehensible shrieks (you know who you are!), and that doesn’t take away from the enjoyment. Each track on ‘Supernove che fanno bang!’ is cleanly and clearly sung with a passion, which the bass, drums, and guitars are all played with a solid competence and obvious dedication, whilst the compositions simply sound good to my ears.

(8/10 Spenny)

https://www.facebook.com/barbariband

https://ibarbari.bandcamp.com/album/supernove-che-fanno-bang