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Review: 'Stiv Cantarelli & The Silent Strangers'
'Banks Of The Lea'   

-  Label: 'Stovepony Records'
-  Genre: 'Blues' -  Release Date: '13th October 2014'-  Catalogue No: 'WCMF015'

Our Rating:
Yes I go back to my family roots in a new bar in Clapton about 800 yards from where my dad grew up and my Grandmother left in 1975 back when it was a bit frightening walking some of the streets. Nothing as bad as the walk from Hackney Central and back would have been like in the 80's though it actually felt safe walking through the pouring rain that sort of fit the album that I was going to see launched, Banks Of The Lea, and in a venue less than half a mile from the river itself. But before I review the gig and get a bunch of the song titles wrong here's a few words on the album.

Finally an album about that most mythic of London rivers the Lea. It's a river that pretty much provides the dividing line between the East End and East London going through some of the grungier parts of town. So it comes to something when an Italian band show up to record in the shadow of the old Lesney's Matchbox toy factory down by Fish Island to do justice to the local landscape and terrain.

Opening with a welter of feedback and distorted guitars The Streets is evocative of how the area around Hackney Wick always was a barren industrial heartland with anarcho punk squats on the fringes. That may not be in the songs lyrics but are certainly in the musical DNA.

Frenzy is like a post football pub fight somewhere close to Hackney marshes as his woman spills blood from his veins over some honking sax and raging guitars. No this won't end well but what post football sessions ever finished well along the banks of the Lea?

Jason Hit The City is all frenzied guitars and sax as Stiv asks to go to the barrelhouse. That must be a pub off the Lea Bridge road right close to the Garage my dad helped to run along there many moons ago. Should we lead Stiv into the dark well? Yes as this is a great dark twisted tale and tune.

Razor/Pistol is for most of the song slow and ruminative as they walk across the marshes towards the flats on Homerton Road and well you'll need your razor and pistol if you're gonna walk through there at night. By the time the song freaks out at the end it's an explosion that you know is gonna happen and it's still welcome.

Sasha has some nice acoustic strumming while Stiv asks if she'll be gone in the morning and lists why he wants her gone. Well yes hopefully so he can get on with making more music.

Arrogance Blues is bruised and angry at being robbed again, well if you will hang out in Hackney Wick what do you expect? I know the Olympics have multi-culturlised the area but it's still not great; unlike the sax on this tune that honks and holds it all together as Stiv pours out his troubles and his solutions.

Lacalifornia rages out of the speakers like it wants to go white water rafting at Picketts Lock way up river; spitting bile and covering us in spittle. As we look into those dark eyes in time for some more sax mania.

Soul Seller sounds a lot like the Italian band OJM's early work which is no bad thing and has some rather fine slide guitar in among the sonic stew although the only market I can think of that would sell souls on the River Lea is Hoe Street market in Walthamstow and this really doesn't evoke E17 in any way shape or form but has nice psych freakbeat touches and is a very cool tune.

Leaving has Stiv singing that he's Leaving, yes he wants away from the Lower Lea and the industrial wasteland as the Lea drains into the Thames and the formerly barren landscape finally has the odd thing built on it.

Before I Die is, as you might expect, a rumination on his last will and testament and the need to see more of the River Lea before he goes. Yes he wants to be in those fields of gold with the sheep by the William Girling Reservoir in Chingford, or does he actually want to be back in the Romagna hills once more? Not sure but a fine song to conclude a really cool album.

So, we're a mile or two up-river from where the album was recorded at Gizzard studios and the album's producer Pete Dublo introduces Stiv Cantarelli and the Silent Strangers.From where I'm sitting I can only see three band members which makes it a bit odd as Roberto Villa (who's out of sight) kind of plays most of the stuff that makes the band's sound work so brilliantly.

The honking sax and some of the madder guitar parts kick off at a frantic pace with the guitars raging and Stiv contorting and spitting out the lyrics and the room is just filled with this enveloping noise on (I think) The Streets that goes straight into the ferocious argument of Frenzy. It's like there is a street battle raging around us all the way down to Mare Street back where I was born.

Stiv introduced an old song. I think he said Gatling Blues but I'm not certain anyway. It brought on the night's first raging sax attack like Terry Edwards in Gallon Drunk Big sexy Noise mode full on room shaking blasts against Stiv's impassioned vocals and twisted guitar. Arrogance Blues ups the ante and the bile and rage from the guitars and the sax are slapping us round the head before Stiv tells us the next song is about wanting to kill your boss and it sounds like he means it to be in full on Romanzo Criminale style with a razor and a pistol. They mean business.

We'd reached that point in the set when Antonio Perugini switched from drum stick to mallets to up the impact of his always forceful drumming while Stiv wailed about how he would follow Me back before they pulled out a storming, full-on raging version of TV Eye; Stiv played some devastating Slide Guitar on a great cover version.

As the blood was running all over the place as the Sax stomped all over the pace, we got down with Jesus before they closed with the tour de force that was Before I Die with Roberto playing demented lap steel licks on an electric guitar and Fabrizio Gramellini's bass just about keeping the whole thing anchored as it had all set long. This was a great song to close with.

After a short break that was enough time to get some more London Fields red beer (nothing like the only reds sold back in the day: either Red Seal or Red Stripe but never red beer) it was time for The Dublo who are Pete Bennett's band and who played a set of estuary/delta blues, although more Lea than Thames in nature. Opening with the bittersweet I Just Wanna Dance To Rock and Roll they certainly have a bit of the Feelgoods meets Remus Down Boulevard about them.

One Man's Blues was a cool rocking little number and the Accordion blasts from the guy who I couldn't see was just right. They then did two cool instrumental blues: the second one was a bit faster and led into an almost acapella rendition of In My Time Of Dying that was more Blind Willie Johnson meets Lydia lunch than Led Zeppelin in its feel.

One Way Blues saw them haring off down Powerscroft Road wondering why they made it one way at all before they almost got romantic on Not My Baby. Road Go Around Me could have had them going round and round in circles but was actually a pretty direct hit of the blues.

The best song of the set for me was We Like Our Blues but we Love our Rock & Roll: a great barrel house rocker of a song. They finished with Hard Working Girl, apparently relating to the sort that used to prowl Upper Clapton road near the ponds. It was a cool set. That really didn't prepare me for the walk through the pouring rain back to the station, though.

Stiv Cantarelli online
  author: simonovitch

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Stiv Cantarelli & The Silent Strangers - Banks Of The Lea