London three-piece bar italia have released their new album Some Like It Hot via Matador.
Some Like It Hot is a 1959 film starring Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon about a group of rogue musicians on the adventure path. It is funny, sexy, rambunctious and evergreen – a showcase of a triple-threat cast at full-throttle. Certain parallels are perhaps not accidental. The new album by bar italia pulses with romance, intrigue, self-discovery and rapture over lustful rockers, spellbinding folk pop, punch-drunk ballads and undefinable moments that sneak up on you like a burst of 5pm sunshine. The record is the culmination of the joint world of Nina Cristante, Jezmi Tarik Fehmi and Sam Fenton – three singer-songwriters who have transcended their underground roots to embrace a bold, widescreen horizon.
‘omni shambles’, is a taut rocker veering between syncopated, angular riffs and cathartic singalong within an action-packed 2 minutes.
bar italia – ‘omni shambles’
The cultivation of their sound, from early homespun recordings like hand drawn sketches (the band presented an exhibition of their drawings in 2023) into the ceiling-wide brush strokes of Some Like It Hot, was chiselled via relentless writing and touring. When bar italia emerged in 2023 from an underground following to release two critically acclaimed albums on Matador only several months apart – the poised Tracey Denim and the grand The Twits – they were a shy, eye-contact-avoiding band, starting sets in darkness and just as soon disappearing backstage. They spent the next two years traversing the globe, with headline performances from Istanbul to Tokyo, sold-out multi-night stints in New York and Los Angeles, and festivals including Corona Capital, Glastonbury and Coachella. With over 160 shows worldwide across 2023-2024, they dispelled any mystique by becoming an exhibitionist and muscular five-piece that gives multiple encores – equally comfortable at festival mosh-pit incitement and moments of pin-drop intimacy.
‘Fundraiser’, a kinetic and hook-laced headrush that is bar italia at their most exhilarating, arrived with a video starring actor Matt King.
bar italia – ‘Fundraiser’
Some Like It Hot is telling of this journey: a collection of rock songs voraciously embracing the main stage. The lightning choruses of ‘omni shambles’ and ‘Eyepatch’ show a band who have mastered melding their idiosyncrasies into tightly coiled pop songs. A pining for tangibility abounds: “just show me the face that you’ve been trying to hide”, Fenton opines on the Balkan-tinged waltz of ‘bad reputation’. Other songs surrender to abandon wholesale: “I was lost to the world from the moment we kissed”, Fenton sings on ‘rooster’, while on the 12-string new wave majesty of ‘Lioness’, Fehmi states, “You have no idea what I can do for you when I’m in this mood”.
Flowing between sinuous groove and sinister guitar onslaughts, ‘Rooster’ is another showcase of the new album’s union of the anthemic and unbridled. Watch an unhinged live performance of the song directed by Simon Mercer and the band below.
bar italia – ‘Rooster’
bar italia have married their serious and heartfelt subject matter with a joy in showmanship. These are songs that twist their quirks into huge choruses, and find elevation in tension, playing with self-identity, emotion and performance until the lines blur. That 1959 Hollywood classic from which the album takes its name ends with the immortal line: “Well, nobody’s perfect.” This, however, comes pretty close.
‘cowbella’ sees a transcendent vocal blunt rotation between members Nina Cristante, Jezmi Tarik Fehmi and Sam Fenton unfolding over a wiry, shapeshifting rocker that culminates in an explosive and chilling skywards coda. It’s a multi-pronged anthem that only bar italia could conjure.
bar italia – ‘cowbella’
bar italia
Some Like It Hot
TRACK LIST
- Fundraiser
- Marble Arch
- bad reputation
- Cowbella
- I Make My Own Dust
- Plastered
- rooster
- the lady vanishes
- Lioness
- omni shambles
- Eyepatch
- Some Like It Hot
bar italia
