BILL IN THE TEA

Hearing this tragically overlooked full-length debut (overlooked here, anyway), the first connections my brain foisted on me were the feisty Italian group Ske and the formidable American rock band The Tea Club. More on those associations later. The unusually named Bill In The Tea are a collective of gents from Sicily who, according to their own bio, are pursuing a "heavily mathematical prog rock from late seventies but eventually evolves into a smoother and plainer musical architecture, strongly influenced by post-rock and neo-psychedelia, with a clear reference to bossa nova, blues and jazz music." Their impressive full-length debut Big Tree was released in Summer 2013, and it blew me away.

Bill in the Tea has released herein a remarkable collection of innovative, adventurous progressive rock tracks featuring challenging chords and complex, fusion-styled jams, the spirit of which reminded me of Ske's first album, 1000 Autunni, although Bill uses more guitar and has less exotic classical instrument support. At the same time, like The Tea Club, Bill brings the complex aspirations of every song back to the realm of appealing melodies, where the songs not only dazzle you but are willing to be assimilated with ease. Yes, it cooks and it dazzles, but it's never impenetrable. This is not snob-rock. This music wants to be loved, wants to engage. Cerebral need not be stuffy.

And I adore the sound palette they paint with here. So much beauty. Right out the gate, an Oceansize-type, math-ish burst followed by plaintive clean guitar chords and long key notes that make one feel lost. Suddenly violin enters. Soft jazzy guitar. Violin and piano together. No one does this vibe as well as the Italians and yet this not typical RPI of the symphonic vein. This is a younger and more contemporary approach, more eclectic, maybe post-rock influenced. Vocals arrive in the second track. The band is more instrumental than vocal-based, but when the vocals are present they remind me of The Tea Club yet again. The third track employs some electronica with recorded spoken-word dialogue. Back to really hot jamming with the aptly titled "I Wanna Be Frank Zappa." The album gets stronger as it goes on with the second half being my favorite stuff, long jams loaded with emotion and color.

I truly hope that we have not heard the last of this band. It's over a decade now with no follow-up album, and this is too good to not be followed up. I really want to hear where they go next. They offer a delightful mixture of the cerebral and the dreamy. They can rock but they also drift along like a summer breeze, a mixture of feelings and emotions not easy to articulate. Bravo!