Afterhours "Ballads For Little Hyenas" (One Little Indian)
By Trey Perkins
Tuesday. Apr 11, 12:34 AM
More forced emotions than a Hallmark Valentine’s Day card.

It must be entirely all too easy to become frustrated in Italy’s music scene. Even though pop is produced internationally, Italy has produced little in the way of pop/rock. To my knowledge, the only musical group from Italy that I can think of is Goblin (Italian Zombie Movie Reference #1), and I only know this because they composed the soundtrack to Dawn of the Dead (and what a damn fine soundtrack it is). The reason this is worth mentioning is because one literally has to strain him or herself to think of one musical group that has come out of Italy. Furthermore, and I know there are more than just Goblin, it’s even harder to think of an Italian pop/rock band that has made a serious stab at breaking into mainstream rock and roll. But along come Afterhours, and all of the sudden people are throwing around phrases like “Italy’s next biggest export,” despite the fact that Manuel Agnelli and company have been around for quite some time (since the late 1980s, I believe).

Time will tell if Afterhours will become the biggest thing to come from Italy since pasta, Fellini movies, and olive oil. If we step back from the fact that Afterhours are a pop/rock outfit from Italy, however, we might want to ask deeper questions about their music. Some of these questions involve their uniqueness, once the novelty of their nationality wears off. In fact, is the band’s music really unique? And furthermore, is it original and worthy of attention? From a first listen, Afterhours’ music is dark and brooding, and Agnelli – the primary lyricist and writer – offers us both riffs and lyrics that are consistent with the music. The opener, “The White Line,” features Agnelli singing, “Turn me on, white curse / use my love, it’s yours / turn me on, white curse / use my soul, it’s yours.” It’s not hard to imagine the wastefully erotic undertones flowing through Agnelli’s lyrics. Then again, it is sung like an incantation you’d hear in a horror movie (Italian Zombie Movie Reference # 2). And it’s lines like these that border on utter ridiculousness. It’s ridiculous because it feels as though the emotional crux of these songs are forced upon you with a plunger. It’s almost as forced and planned as their pseudo-sexy/indie promo photo (note: leather jackets and frowny faces do not make you stoic badasses: filthy guitar solos and awesome lyrics do). You don’t know whether to laugh at the serious pretense of these lyrics or not.

There’s nothing else that stands out about the music on the album, and the lyrics grab your attention only briefly. Yet, the attention I find myself devoting to the lyrics do not express a sentiment like “gee, what an interesting way of stating such-and-such.” More often than not, I find myself saying, “Jesus Crap, did he say what I thought he said? Who wrote these lyrics, focus groups?” Take “Ballad For My Little Hyena” (I’m assuming Agnelli’s Little Hyena is a kind of ferocious lover or something similarly conventional) as another case in point: “Your Chaffeur driver man / only got one hand / that he steers around visions / you think that you command.” Whoa! Nice AABA rhyme scheme there, Bill Shakespeare!

However, there are always diamonds in the rough, even on Ballads For Little Hyenas. “Sparkle” stands out as a true ballad, and musically the parts sing in concert with Agnelli’s vocals. The bottom line: the music is conventional and trite in a laughable manner, but the arrangements demonstrate a solid sense of composition. Better luck next time (and with less brooding seriousness), maybe?
www.afterhours.it
www.onelittleindian-us.com

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Trey Perkins

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