This one came out not too long ago on Voodoo Rhythm, a label that hit a bit of financial trouble as of late. The band is the Movie Star Junkies, a great broken blues-punk combo from Turin, Italy, whose primary influences are (quite obviously, actually) the Birthday Party and the Gun Club. This particular record, the band’s first full-length LP, happens to be a concept album (no shit!) about Herman Melville of all people, the famous 19th-century writer and adventurer (best known for the classic, Moby-Dick). Thus, the record is full of stories of shipwrecks, illness, religion and love, although I’m not sure exactly how most of them relate directly to Melville’s life. Maybe they don’t, who knows? But what I can tell you is that most of these tracks are incredibly dark, exotic, moody, and crawl along menacingly, full of emotion, lust, anger, fear and desperation. This is a record I can listen to back-to-back for a couple of hours and not get bored with it, and that’s saying something. This shit just sounds IMPORTANT to me. Like, future classic important. I guess time will tell if that actually happens and is considered such, and it would definitely be a lot more probable if they can churn out a couple more masterpieces like this one, so we’ll just have to wait and see if that ever happens. But I, for one, am keeping my fingers crossed. Heh. And here I bet you thought I was a “glass half empty” kinda guy… Shame on you.

I don’t know how many of you remember (or even ever heard) a band from a few years back called the Starvations, but they remind me a LOT of them, in fact, even moreso than the aforementioned influences. I’m also hearing a bit of Turpentine Brothers as well as later-period Deadly Snakes here, too. Think spaghetti westerns meet pirate movies set to music. Ah, hell, why do I even try? Here, just listen to a few choice cuts:

Little Boy (MP3)
Run Away From Me (MP3)
Dead Love Rag (MP3)
Melville (MP3)

By the way, if you dig these sounds, definitely go see the band performing live at Lemmons next month (Saturday April 25) with Kentucky Knife Fight and the Argonauts (yes, admittedly, this is a show I set up… so please excuse the blatant self-promotion). How often do you get to see an Italian blues-punk band up-close and personal? Especially one this good?