Italian post-punk band Leatherette have announced the release of their debut full-length album 'Fiesta'.
The 10-track record will be out on 14th October via Bronson Recordings. The songs on Fiesta precede the Covid era, though the group spent the pandemic rewriting and overhauling their maiden batch of songs at leisure. Pre-order your copy here.
The result is an astonishing and remarkable debut: poetic, caterwauling, broken and beautiful. The album title is “a reference to the bullfights in Pamplona,” the group say. It’s no empty metaphor. “Bullfight is a strange ritual,” they elaborate. “And we’re against bullfights, but they’re fascinating in an iconographic way. And also metaphorically, violence flows on both sides, but in a feastful way. It’s similar to a concert, really – you’re expressing violent things, in a physical way. And people react to that, which is wonderful, which is fantastic.”
The band have also shared the video for "So Long", their recently released single, an extravagant and catchy slice of modern post-punk, full of rugged noise and crushing melodies. The video was directed by the band and Maicol Guidetti (Common Wild Pigs).
Leatherette explain: "We usually have a laugh and talk about this song as our dad-rock(est) work. That is why we decided to make a video visually inspired by Guitar Hero. Even though the song talks about suicide, it does so in an optimistic, light at the end of the tunnel kind of way". In their self-made video "Andrea, our (real) guitar hero, represents the music, the hope and energy that comes out of the creative process. The other 4 members instead, dressed in black and emotionless, represent the song's lyrics, at times sad and nihilistic. As the video progresses, the 4 birds of ill omen slowly disappear, leaving the guitarist standing and playing until the end. Life is a game worth playing, isn't it?"
Leatherette are, by their own description, “five shy guys who sometimes get off the stage and punch people,” a quintet whose car-crash of jagged noise, twisted love and dark, anguished melody has delivered a remarkable – and eminently combustible – debut album.
The group are based in Bologna, but all hail from different towns in Italy. These five young men – singer/guitarist Michele, bassist Marco, drummer Francesco, guitarist Andrea and saxophonist Jacopo – are united by a profound need to make music, to express themselves naturally and honestly.
The band bonded over wildly differing influences – everything from midwestern emo gods American Football, to Berlin-era Bowie, to James Chance & The Contortions, to rap and electronic music – to create a dense, passionate, articulate sound of their own.
Check out the album's tracklist and watch the video for "So Long", below.
Fiesta Tracklisting:
1. Come Clean
2. So Long
3. Dead Well
4. Fiesta
5. Cut
6. Fly Solo
7. No Way
8. Thin Ice
9. Play
10. Sunbathing
