Before the Day Has Gone

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Bellini are a band with their own way of doing things. They would almost have to be, since not many groups have one half of the lineup (guitarist Agostino Tilotta and vocalist Giovanna Cacciola) living on one continent and the the rest (bassist Matthew Taylor and drummer Alexis Fleisig) living on another. That may make their creative process a bit more challenging, but it's hard to argue with the results. Released in 2018, Before the Day Has Gone arrives a full nine years after Bellini's previous album, 2009's The Precious Prize of Gravity, and six years after they started recording it. The musicians recorded the tracks in Chicago in 2012 (with their frequent collaborator Steve Albini at the controls), but it wasn't until 2017 that Cacciola completed her lyrics and vocals at a studio in Italy. This might seem like a curiously piecemeal way to make an album, but Before the Day Has Gone sounds fresh and spontaneous despite its convoluted gestation. It's tough, bracing, challenging music in which precision and chaos walk hand in hand. Agostino Tilotta's guitar sends shards of razor-sharp noise around the room while Matthew Taylor and Alexis Fleisig provide a rolling, tumbling framework that holds the music together even while they're in constant motion. And Giovanna Cacciola declaims over it all with the confidence of a poet and the fire of a visionary, fitting into these performances like a fourth player rather than a vocal accompanist (all the more remarkable given that her contributions were recorded years after the fact). While their unusual circumstances have ensured that Bellini can only be so prolific, they seem determined to make their work together count, and Before the Day Has Gone is an American-European alliance more successful and effective than NATO. ~ Mark Deming