Leatherette - Fiesta Vinyl Record

The group are based in Bologna, but all hail from different towns in Italy. These five young men - singer/guitarist Michele, bassist Marco, drummer Francesco, guitarist Andrea and saxophonist Jacopo - bonded over wildly differing influences - everything from midwestern emo gods American Football, to Berlin-era Bowie, to James Chance & The Contortions, to rap and electronic music - to create a dense, passionate, articulate sound of their own. You can file them near fiery post-punk kindreds like Shame and Squid, or unhinged 90s noisers like Unwound or Hoover, or squalling No Wavers like James Chance, but the truth is there are few bands like Leatherette that walk this Earth. The songs on first full-length, Fiesta precede the Covid era, though the group spent the pandemic rewriting and overhauling their maiden batch of songs at leisure. The result is an astonishing and remarkable debut: poetic, caterwauling, broken and beautiful.