Spiritual Front from Italy and Naevus from England join each other on this colourful grotesque 10″ picture disc. Each band contributes three unreleased tracks. A record filled with neo pop`n`folk sounds, as the record label describes it. I’m not sure if there is a specific idea behind this split release, perhaps Old Europa Cafe just wanted to combine two interesting acts on one record.
Naevus starts the ‘Bedtime-part’ with ‘Recovery Is Not Permitted’. One of the better songs I know from them, with a nice accordion melody and convincing semi-spoken vocals. An original mixture of pop, folk and postpunk. The short ‘Blimey, it’s Bedtime’ is much heavier, it has a loud wall of sound in the vein of the earlier Swans releases. Not bad, but perhaps a bit out of place on this otherwise quite tranquil record. Their last track is a decent demo version of ‘While You Sleep’, one of the best songs from their “Behaviour” album.
The ‘Badtime-side’ is filled by Spiritual Front. We’re treated to some nice melancholic poppy ballads. There is a wonderful nostalgic organ sound in the first piece ‘Malediction Gitane’, which has a compelling gypsy flavour and gives you the urge to sing along. It is followed by the desperate romantic piano song ‘Cold Love In Cold Coffin’ and a short instrumental experiment.
This split release is a nice addition to my record collection, with the first tracks of each side as the highlights.
