Il Manuale Del Perfetto Impostore,
Me For RentI’ll openly admit my knowledge of Italian punk to being less than grand. Infact I know sweet FA about their scene, but if the standard of their bands comes anything close to ‘Me for Rent’ then by jove I think we all owe it to ourselves to find out more. Because quite frankly, this is 14 tracks of riproaring skate punk at its melodically injected finest.
For some reason though it took me a long time to get around to listening to it. Maybe it was the gaudy artwork on the front or the fact that an Italian band didn’t instantly appeal to me. Once I took in the first few tracks though, I knew I had made a mistake and since then it has been gaining regular rotation in the homestead of Skegness. From the moment the drums and harmonies kick in on ‘4m x 4m you sense something a little special. With echoes of No Use for a Name, NOFX and even Sublime (!) in their sound, it is a more than satisfactory 31 minute skate punk romp. It never strays to far from a tried and well tested formula of pacy snare smashing and tight melodic hooks, but the fact that it is all completed so efficiently is testament that there is barley a weak effort on show. From the biting edges and slick guitar play on ‘Il Grande Ovile’ to the delightfully quirky ‘Pleasure Shelter’ (Why is the Italian accent so hypnotizing?) the surreal is just as easily performed as the serious and gives a light hearted touch to proceedings.
‘Il Manuale Del Perfetto Impostore’ has proved a real find and will stick around for a long time to come. The seemingly effortless toils of ‘Self Service’ cant help but inject the leg with tapping spasms while the more complex ‘Undressed Nation’ impresses as the album ends on a high. Faults? Hard to find, but with English being introduced to the song writing, maybe they could start to make waves over the pond. It is minor, but for the time being, Me for Rent are fine just being themselves and that is good news for all involved.
Jay
NerdSound Records
