Yerbadiablo are in Italian punk/jazz/pop/rock band that appear to have dropped from the same well of fevered inspiration as Fugazi, the butthole surfers and any number of other similarly unusual US underground acts. As the band’s press release itself explains, trying to compartmentalise the album ‘jester in brick lane’ is fundamentally difficult. Certainly the word eclectic applies here, although this does little to describe yerbadiablo’s magnificent range and you can’t help but feel any exposition of the band deserves more than generic terms to imply a diverse range of styles. Featuring 13 tracks in total, all of which are magnificently varied and yet, somehow, coherently linked, the album is a vibrant, colourful, often very exciting work that incorporates sound effects, hard hitting riffs and an intelligent lyrical theme concerning a need for collective action on behalf of humanity to realign ourselves with mother earth; to develop a wonderfully unique sound that is part conservational plea, part art-house punk extravaganza. You may not find everything to your taste over the course of the record, but it is never dull, and as the titular Jester guides you through the labyrinthine complexities of the record you’ll find yourself drawn into the heart of the music, lost in a sense of wonder at the grandiosity of the band’s vision.
Opening with ‘Punk in-fusion’ you’d be entirely forgiven for believing this to be a simple, straightforward lo-fi punk album. Based around an insistent riff and a repetitive chorus it’s still teeth-rattlingly effective, but even here the band are pushing the limits and expectations of the audience with a reggae mid-section that only The Clash would have dared attempt. Moreover, once ‘Winston Smith & The Street Dogs’ cruises into view, you realise something altogether different is happening here. Opening with an acoustic strum, it’s Pixies-esque surf-punk with Eric Clapton on guitar and lyrics that are a mixture of global history and Depeche mode’s ‘people are people’. The oddness continues on ‘Brick Lane’ which slips into effortlessly groovy territory, as if Joe Satriani had popped in for a bit of a good-time jam over a warm, jazz-rock backdrop, and if that wasn’t enough, having turned the lights down low, ‘back to the monkey’ kicks us into sleazy, red hot chilli peppers territory, albeit with the defiant cry of “there’s no reason to fight if you can’t see your enemy!” while a slowed down voice demands the impossible. It’s Faith No More doing evil funk with Johnny Rotten on vocals and it sounds awesome, if gloriously unconventional.
Keeping in mind that, with this album, anything is possible, ‘Z’etoile’ still surprises with its backwards phased sound effects, tribal drums and trilling flute. It’s a beautiful instrumental that adds a serious note to the album without uttering a word, and is deeply evocative of nature in all its primal glory. ‘Panamerika’ has a similarly world music feel, but introduces acoustic guitars and lyrics sung in the band’s native tongue. The music twists and turns once more into an alt-rock vein for ‘magic jester’s box’, a song that would make a good single with its twisted guitars, quite-loud dynamic and memorably melodic chorus giving way to a beautifully laid-back solo. Darkness awaits at the end, however, and ‘Sulphurea’ homes in on the listener with a throbbing bass line and post-rock dynamics that threaten to loosen your nerve endings as guitars jangle and feedback howls in the blackness. It’s a lengthy, chilling workout that suggests Sonic Youth covering vintage Pink Floyd at a horror convention and it’s terrifyingly effective too. ‘Guilty blues’, in contrast, does watery, funky blues in the vein of The Clash, and with its sneering lyric “God save America, God save the queen why don’t you dare to save the oceans in between?” a mix of the Sex Pistol’s anarchic fury and the WTO protestors at the battle of Seattle, it captures the awkward fight between environmental forces and the Capitalist agenda.
Returning to the liquid surf-punk of ‘Winston Smith…’, ‘Bad days good waves’ has a smooth slide guitar that contrasts with the lightly overdriven punk riffs and furiously delivered vocals that recall Rancid at their most antagonistic. ‘Towards Winay marka’ takes completely the opposite tack. A digitally enhanced, sound-effect strewn icy segue it chills the bones before slipping into the sumptuous acoustic ballad of ‘niebla’ which sounds as if it was crafted in a leafy glade at Glastonbury festival before fading out in a welter of sub-bass noise through the oh-so-brief ‘Yerbadiablo’ closer. It is a strangely downbeat ending to an album that is filled with so much life and light, and yet considering the on-going issues the album aims to expose, it is fitting that the ending should be bleak.
Few bands tackle the problems of an increasingly globalised world. Even fewer do so in a fashion that is so scattershot and yet intelligently and cogently argued. The Jester is almost Shakespearian in implementation, recalling the character of Feste from twelfth night who, in the guise of the fool, offers more wisdom over the course of the play than any of the other characters. The jester is a mirror held up to the face of the wise, highlighting the folly of their plight; the jester is our conscience and we ignore him at our peril, and as a conceptual device it provides the interlinking theme for the band’s endlessly inventive musical work. ‘Jester in brick Lane’ is a bold, innovative record that has much to say but which never takes itself too seriously or becomes ponderous. The balance between music and philosophy is deftly handled and the message an important one. Yerbadiablo are a band who have much to offer and who, on this record, deliver an intense, fascinating musical work that rewards repeated listens and time spent absorbing the lyrics. Highly recommended.
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