Seahorse Recording (label)
04 April 2012 (released)
04 April 2012
Take the South of Italy, a drum machine, four young guys and Italian English singing band Fräulein Alice is formed. When the original members, Andrea Curcuraci, Livio Lombardo, Filippo Drago and Lorenzo Arcidiacono met drummer Fabio Esposito in 2010, they knew their line-up was complete.
Enter 2012 and the release of their debut album, I Love You, Lucilia. Having recorded it during 2011 with producer Paolo Messere, Paolo also offered his extra services by playing on some of the tracks. Fräulein say their songs ‘vibrate emotion and strong feelings, such as rage, love and sufferance, where lots of other things can be found in a kaleidoscope of an album’.
Whore or Less is a great opening track laden with guitar sounds and electronic experiments. A deep, dark sounding voice that suits the song.
Easy Goal Up is a gentle song with a slower tempo then the opening track. The surprise is that is soon takes you on a rollercoaster of a rhythm ride filled with dips and curves of emotion and passion.
Road to Berlin picks up a beat that is different to the tracks before it. It is upbeat and has an almost pop-indie sound to it. It will have you doing more than just tapping and nodding your head along.
What Else opens with a sentimental piano sound that is heartbreakingly beautiful. It fingers the edge of your soul and refuses to let go until it has lifted you up slowly and heightens the feeling when the drum beats kick in. By the time the guitars are in unison you are floating on a cloud which is flying you across the Mediterranean Sea in the beautiful summer breeze.
A gentle weeping guitar glides you into Ogres from Heaven the albums closing track. Monster lyrics are velveted with a sweet sound which, if we go on sound alone, ogres do not seem so scary after all. The lyrics may say otherwise.
Fräulein describe themselves as a ‘shoegazer alternative rock band’, and although many of their lyrics on some tracks are indecipherable and drowned out by guitars, there is clarity amongst the fog. Many tracks take a twist here and there but Fräulein debut a specific sound for their first album. In Road to Berlin Fräulein ask “I will tell you what I want”. The question for the listener will be whether they want to hear more of a mixture and diverse lyrical sound or whether the group has found a winning formula already. This album is a great debut which has more of an indie feel to it rather than alternative rock. Fráulein give an almost constant hypnotic sound from its front-man, but is also backed-up with a band full of promising musicians.
