The DIY conspiracy strikes gain with another release in the name of auto-production and true underground music. For those who don’t know what I’m talking about, the DIY conspiracy is a combination of many little Italian “labels”
(in this case: Choices Of Your Own, Sons Of Vesta, Piccole Speranze, Rolling Anarky records, Noisecult, Produzioni Sante) united in order to demonstrate how the co-production and the DoItYourself ethic is still strongly alive and above all it’s able to put out really valid works like the latest albums of Any Good Reason and Lucida Follia, for example.
This time we are in front of a split (the title is unequivocal) between the more expert Slight from Pesaro and the newborn (from the ashes of Hor.net, even if they only change their name and genre, but the members are still
the same) Peralta from Lodi.
The previous record of SLIGHT “Everything starts by a feedback” was a very pleasant listening for me about two years ago, so my expectations were pretty high when I received this cd. Unfortunately these seven songs leave me a little bit puzzled. Don’t get me wrong: the musical proposal is good again, but it doesn’t add too much to what they’ve
said in the past, on the contrary in my modest opinion their first album was more animated, more involving and more solid. It’s undeniable that the success of their post-hardcore screamo formula is in large part due to the depth and intensity of the vocals which give a lot of points to many titled or supposed titled American’s emo bands; sometimes I’m sure that this voice could seize even the appreciations of those really hate the total melodic thing. But about this quality we all have noticed in the past…So what have they changed or improved with this first “landscape” of the split? I repeat: not much and also not
in the better way, I think. The pure instrumental parts are increased and prolonged (the last song “Breakfast alone” is totally instrumental) and this choice contributes to dilate and fragment the tracks with the risk to keep distant the listener; only when the vocals take back the role of protagonist the songs touch their high. Anyway this is sure
a good band that deserve the right attentions because their music isn’t cliché or banal at all and I hope to have another occasion to see them live because at Sons of Vesta fest I arrived when they’ve already finished to play. Big mention for the third song “Jimi & Jesus”: an authentic example of intensity!
Let’s talk about PERALTA. At first, if you listened to, you have to totally forget Hor.net, their previous “mark”. No new school, no crossover, no nu-metal, nothing of it all, maybe only the melodies are remained: now Peralta is a classic four members combo with a guitar player-singer,
strongly influenced by the famous Californian melodic punk-rock (not hardcore yet) style. The first band that the second part of the split reminds me is No Use For A Name. So from the first song to the last one, the fresh and happy-go-lucky sound maintains its line without any
hesitations and a sufficiently capability whether in the use of the instruments or in the songwriting. The vocals are appreciable and they never run the risk to become flat like sometimes the genre should wrongly involve. My regret is the rarity of fast parts, really lacking in more part of the tracks where they go down and the album become a little
bit monotonous. In fact the best song in my opinion is surely “Smorgasboard”, the fastest, the shortest, the most hardcore to conclude.
What about the rest? The lyrics of two bands are both good and introspective, even if some sentences by Slight are a little bit emo cliché (“hope falls like stars in august nights and we are spectators”, for example), instead the Peralta ones are simple, but fresh and positive, as “Nothing
ever will be the same” that rightly invite to look forward, to put apart the past mistakes or bad times and to stand strong for the present and the future.
The hand-drawn artwork is basilar and minimalist, but very nice and efficacious, in my eyes.
However we have 42 minutes of agreeable music with really good intentions in the background: we have to support the DIY ethic if we want our music alive for a long time!

Ric