by Jade Winings (@jadewinings)
Brit-pop trio bar italia released Tracey Denim, an album holding a complex amount of unexpected musical elements. The perfectly blended sound highlights their moody bass lines, rushing hi-hats, and a phenomenally overwhelming amount of vocal textures. The album harbors a narrative theme of lacking a conscious relationship with your inner demons alongside the self destruction from holding onto toxic attachments with other people. Within the abundance of fifteen tracks, bar italia unleashed their dark undertones within three singles "Nurse!," "punkt," and "changer".
After the carefree vibe of “Nurse!,” the following singles each continued to pack a punch, and bar italia did not hesitate to set a scene of disregard for others feelings due to another’s lack of self control. “punkt” describes a person that does not care how another feels, they “just want to lose control”. Raspy vocals and lingering verses express the regret and self frustration of words left unsaid within the single “changer,” intensely expressing the dreary side of bar italia through beautifully harmonized lyrics fueled with dread; “I can hardly wait to see to the end of my world”. The three singles offered at least one to relate to, which can say a lot about your current mindset.
Listeners further encounter the recurring theme and motions of emotional damage and its daily routine within “Miss Morality”. The song can be perceived to tell a story about experiencing the cycle of hearing inside and outside voices telling you to give up your dreams because; if you don’t belong anywhere, what’s the point of trying to be anything? Tracey Denim features a wide variety of self destructive behavior and stories of hurt people hurting people.
“F.O.B” and “Best In Show” compares two of the many sides of self destruction; individual self destruction and destruction through others, both for the purpose of feeling any sort of control. “F.O.B” leaves no room for curiosity as the writer states he feels his casually seductive journey is in his control, closely portraying the social situation as a game, stated through lyrics of “being stuck in a loop” with someone else, and as the other person impends into further pain, the person convinces themselves to think they “love the tear drops” down their own cheeks in order to feel something. “F.O.B” paints a picture of two people hurting each other by hurting themselves. “Best In Show” suits a similar situation but insinuates commitment being present, but this time desire is one sided. Acoustic strings pair with desperate cries for mutuality and complaints of giving to someone who only takes. The song shows self destruction from the inability to let go of someone who is bad for you through descriptions of being willing to let someone hurt you by being their “last of the night”.
Tracey Denim is wrapped up as a front-to-back emotional journey with an instrumentally uplifting ending track “maddington,” a song about letting go of what doesn’t serve you, which is perfect in response to the prior tracks surrounding self sabotage. The record is worth the time to close your eyes, open your ears, and delve into the listening experience.