bar italia with Insula Iscariot
High Noon Saloon Madison WI December 13th, 2023
bar italia with Insula Iscariot
High Noon Saloon Madison WI December 13th, 2024
A weirdly appealing mystery laid over the crowd at Madison’s High Noon Saloon waiting to hear buzz-heavy bar italia. The two albums the up-and-coming punk trio released this year stoked the flames for a rare opportunity to see a British act burning bright. Bright was the opposite of the band’s astonishing hour-plus set that night, but bathed in deep red lighting, burning was spot on.
Lurking in a shadow world of their own making, the press-shy trio brought an excellent bass player and drummer anchoring swashbuckling stabs and twisted licks as each song’s multiple moods descended into disparate pronouncements. Anxious ennui greeted twilight terrors as somber doldrums rode over turbulent insurgence with predatory coyness. Covering all but two songs from last month’s, “The Twits,” with a healthy dose from their Matador debut, “Tracy Denim,” plus a few early works to round out the restless fifteen-song set, the three singers traded lines with curiously isolated indifference as gnarly barbs, madcap slashes and ferocious chords rang from the two guitars.
With no clear leader stepping forward to address the audience, an awkward silence, magnified by their time spent between songs tuning and fixing gear, inevitably brought a voice from the back shouting, “Somebody say something.” The bespectacled Jezmi Fehmi received abundant applause by responding, “what do you want me to say?” Half of the duo Double Virgo who comprise two thirds of bar italia, Fehmi also fielded the cringe-worthy question, “what’s your favorite color?” with a swift, deadpan response, “I’m color-blind.”
A hushed, “thank you,” at the end of the set and flashing a peace sign after the three-song encore was the most the High Noon got from singer Nina Cristante, whose vocals were unfortunately drowned out in the mix every so often. Co-founder Sam Fenton cloistered himself in casual valor on both vocals and alternating rhythm and lead guitar. Despite, or due to the psychic moat the band erected, once unleashed, the music was vibrant, churning, exceptionally seductive and wonderfully discordant and thorny.
The opener Insula Iscariot was also a powerful force delivering thick, delirious beats and distorted voices battling massive sonic gravity. A long gap between acts slowed the momentum II’s N.A. Harnessing created but foreshadowed the quiet anticipation then fiery dynamics bar italia displayed with blameless disdain that made the mid-December Wednesday a night to remember. The chill of winter etched on a show emblazoned in hazy London grunge.
