Album review: Black Pie - Angels (2024)

Black Pie is comprised of three experienced musicians, Elena ‘Hellen’ Villa, a singer, lyricist, musician and composer formerly of Malcondita on bass, mandolin and lead vocals; Claudio ‘Clode’ Cinquegrana, a member of the New Trolls on guitars, keyboards and backing vocals; and Silvano ‘Syl’ Bottari, formerly of Vanexa, one of Italy’s founding heavy metal bands who emerged from Savona in 1978, playing drums and percussion. Based in Liguria, the band got together in 2023 with the aim of performing updated interpretations of classic rock songs, gigging around Savona during the summer months. The original idea came from Bottari, who felt he needed to reassess his life in music, exhibiting a desire to rearrange classic rock tracks and take them on the road. The first rehearsal was enough to demonstrate a shared musical chemistry between the three which evolved into a friendship through playing.
When the live shows ended the band headed to the studio with the sketchy intention of producing some original music without much expectation that anything would come of it but when Villa revealed five pieces of songs both Cinquegrana and Bottari were quick to get behind the project. The Cinquegrana-Villa writing team proved particularly effective and with Stefano Genti, the New Trolls’ keyboard player drafted into the group for recording, the album that would become ANGELS took shape quickly, mixing together the band members’ individual musical inspirations into a coherent, if loose concept dedicated to their daughters; the band only have female children, their ‘angels’. Villa has described the concept as “the alchemical journey of a soul that chooses its life experience and the body in which to incarnate and, inevitably, despite being born in complete balance, encounters the chaos of our toxic society.” While each song is intended to stand up on its own merit, adherence to the album’s running order is essential to understand the conceptual narrative.
Not all prog albums are concept albums and not all concept albums are by prog bands but a concept is a good indication that a band has put some thought into the creative process. I’m a bit old-school when it comes to applying tags to musical forms and although I don’t think ANGELS is a prog album, it doesn’t matter in the least what specific genre a piece of music belongs to if it’s good music. ANGELS is well-played and a well-produced album with a great vocal performance, Villa delivering a convincing rendition in American-tinged English.
Opening track OFF THE RADAR comes across as Americana, a gentle two-verse song which is less than three minutes long, making it the shortest piece of music on the album. The lapping waves at the end don’t prepare you for the groovy, heavy and funky KAOS NIGHT which has a spaced-out keyboard-dominated section before the final verse. There’s barely time for a breath before electric piano announces LITTLE LADY BRIGHT. This is a varied track with more funk and sections with Mellotron-like chords under the vocals, some inventive rhythmic patterns and an electric piano fade out. The singing on BORDERLINE is close to rap but the standout feature is the tightness of the rhythm section, evidence of the players’ skill and their understanding. YOUR FAULT is a piece of classic blues-rock but the vocal phrasing reminds me of SOMETHING’S ON THE MOVE from Jethro Tull’s STORMWATCH. Is it coincidence that the penultimate verse begins with the line “Let the thunder, the storm…”? WELCOME TOXIC is a track of two halves with the vocals in the first part describing wild, passionate sex and a slower instrumental second part featuring dark and disturbing soundscapes before the opening guitar riff is reintroduced for a few bars at the end of the song. Villa has revealed that in preparation for writing the album she’d been listening to a broad range of music, citing “Yes to Skunk Anansie” and I can imagine Jon Anderson coming up with something cosmic-sounding like PEOPLE FROM THE SKY which incorporates Anderson tropes: vocal repetition, New-Age themes and syncopated guitar. FROM THE ASHES is a return to funky grooves with bright picked guitar alternating with distorted slashes. It may just be my wild imagination but I do get a bit of a Wishbone Ash vibe during the solo in the middle of the song where they use overdubbed guitar. BLANKET TIDE is the longest song on the album. There’s not a great deal of development during the verses which make up the first half of the song but the guitar solo over a solid bass riff in the middle of the song and the short instrumental after the last six lines of vocals help the track stand out. The theatrically-delivered stepwise-descending vocals of LIFT IT give way to a bluesy guitar solo before a vocal reprise and the start of a very different track, FOLLOW. This is a gentle 1’25 instrumental followed by around 90 seconds of silence before a ghost track is revealed, a bright sounding vocal piece which matches the music and theme of the album and links to what’s been hinted at as follow-up album. The ghost track is to be released on a flexi disc in September on the album’s official launch date.
I’m a real fan of Villa’s bass sound - videos show her using a Rickenbacker and Rush have been cited as an inspiration – but it’s clear that all the players are highly proficient and they’ve really gelled as an ensemble. On the other hand I’m not a great fan of lyrics where the last consonant of a word is dropped, like flyin’ or drivin’, but that’s a matter of personal taste and I do think Villa’s vocal style is well suited to blues-based rock. I’m also convinced that with the backing of Black Widow Records the band has a bright future.