Fra Noi Embrace Your Inner Italian
The Vince Chiarelli Band continues to redefine traditional Italian music with the release of its self-titled third album. Featuring Vince Chiarelli on vocals and guitar, Frank Calvagna on guitar, and Tony Chiarelli on bass, the band has made a name for itself by infusing Italian and Italian-American favorites with bossa nova and flamenco rhythms. Among the dozen tracks on their latest CD are “Quando Quando Quando,” “Bella Notte,” “Spanish Eyes” and “You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me.” The Rockford-based band upholds the legacy of Chiarelli’s grandfather and namesake, Vince, a Sicilian-born songwriter and musician. (vincechiarelliband.com)
The guitar tone is very saturated, so they certainly layered every riff with multiple takes. In the vinyl reissue for this album, they comment on the fact that they weren”t good enough at guitar to play the riffs they wanted, leading to the use of layering single lines of guitar melody rather than say tremolo-picking thirds on two strings as many BM artists are wont to do. I think this not only contributes to the richness of this record”s guitar sound, but also its more interesting use of counterpoint than most bands (including Sacramentum after this album) would attempt, as multi tracked guitar parts allow for completely independent lines of melody not bound by the limitations of the guitarist or the instrument itself. Swano is known to use the AKG 414, perhaps he applied that to the guitars as well. I too wish to better understand how they achieved such a wondrous sound.