If you had the chance to read “Meet Me in The Bathroom”, the popular book written by Lizzy Goodman, you were immersed into the renaissance of rock music in New York at the beginning of the new century. From 2001 to the end of the decade e large number of bands had the urgency of tell in music the need to start again after the Twin Towers attack: from The Strokes to Interpol, from Yeah Yeah Yeahs to The National, it was an epiphany of fresh and intense music. Rock was giving young generations a contemporary way to express feelings and expectations. After that decade rock music took an underground road: rap was monopolizing the new generations’ imaginary.
New York, as you know, never sleeps so there was the need to have a new wave for expressing the fears and hopes of young people facing life in these strange days. That is why bands like Been Stellar have taken their place in the musical panorama of post pandemic life.
Sam Slocum (vocals), Nando Dale (guitar), Skyler St.Marx (guitar) Laila Wayans (drums) and Nico Brunstein (bass guitar) created the band during their studies in New York. Their first release (Been Stellar EP, 2022) was an identity card of a nervous and tense way of playing joined with a fragile romanticism: “Arthur” was a good example of echoes of the first Interpol, with an excruciating guitar treble to break down every defense. The path was marked out, a confirmation was needed to show that the band gets serious: Scream from New York, NY is their evidence.
Produced by Dan Carey (Black Midi, Fontaines DC) the album offers a fusion of noise, shoegaze and post punk which gests straight to the point. Dry, essential, powerful, the songs live in the connection between angry guitars and Sam’s screams and whispers. “Start Again” has a melancholic beginning while guitars warm up and explode in the central part: Sam doesn’t spare himself and until the final invective “New York wasted, start again start again”. “Passing Judgement” stands on the drums and bass connection until the restless refrain gives space to the guitar assault. “Scream From New York, NY” lives as a ballad exploding in a disconsolate impetus of screaming guitars while Sam sings of a city in which everything can happen, but maybe no one cares of it: “Middle Church, Burning in the low cold hum of holy motors, Black smoke, Coughing through their mask, Old man is taking pictures, The people didn’t make a sound, A humming bled all around”. “I Have The Answer” closes the album slowly, drone layers create a sense of waiting and the lyrics suggest to find little moments of awareness in our messed up lives:”I have the answer, just for a little while”.
“Scream From New York, NY” is a good example of contemporary rock and the right soundtrack to stay alert until Donald Trump will lead his new assault to American democracy.
