Bands have perceived connections with the past whether you, or they, want them or not. If yesterday's new band, Saboteur, reminded us of the 90's - if not in sound, at least in spirit - then Today's New Band, Padre Pio, simply reek of the 70's and 80's, sonically and, quite possibly, intellectually.

And if that has conjured up images of 70's wank-rock or 80's poodle-hair-rock, then a) wash your mind with bleach; no-one deserves to inflict that kind of mental torture to themselves, and b) instead think of when rock was a bit luxuriant, asexual and gleaming. Think Bowie and Lou Reed. Think of druggy, sharp-suited excess and eyeshadow on men. Think of a time when rock wasn't scruffy, but glistening with confidence.

Padre Pio's songs caress your eardrums with all of those things. Colour is a synthy glammy pop breeze, and Common Day is the great late 70's New York song you've never heard. It also, against all odds, achieves rock's most risky, difficult feat: a great Sax solo. Their songs are slightly pompous, eccentric and lithely predatory - all missing in most music now, and extremely welcome.

Surely Padre Pio aren't going to be gazing at the stars forever, wondering when they can strut their stuff in, I like to imagine, delightfully-cut suits. A band this swooning and sexy has to, and deserves to, end up foppishly jostling with the big boys. Brill. Listen to them here!

P.S. As a side note, Padre Pio are, apparently, from Bushwick, in Brooklyn. This has no connection at all with rapper Bushwick Bill from the Geto Boys, but it's still an excuse to show the cover of their album We Can't Be Stopped, which features Bushwick Bill being rolled into hospital AFTER HE SHOT HIMSELF IN THE EYE. Now that's hardcore.

Labels: asexual, lithe, synth-o-tronic

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