Julie's Haircut resurface on Homesleep Records for their first release in a year-and-a-half with the five-song EP
The Power of Psychic Revenge. The Italian group, who sing in English, continue to wear their influences on their sleeves here, those influences constituting the entire history of clever, primitive rock dating back to
the Velvet Underground and up to
the Flaming Lips. Leaders Nicola Caleffi and Luca Giovanardi write poetic, allusive lyrics, and sing them in slight accents (the "th" sound in English is particularly difficult, so that "other" comes out sounding like "udder") over guitar-driven pop arrangements. Bassist Laura Storchi gets her showcase on the frantic "Shabby Girls at Piccadilly Stryx," and the pace drops for the angst-filled "Lost in a Riot." The songwriters have a good sense of the musicality of English that allows them to come up with such passages as this from "Ballad of Deejays": "I was just around to love you, but now everything has gone / And you knew it all along. Why can't you see? / I was looking for some action, but you pushed it all too far / Now you wish upon a star to set you free." There are lots of native English-speaking musicians who would be hard-put to match that, and how many of them could write a song in Italian? ~ William Ruhlmann