THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Milan group The Gluts have changed their tune for their latest album Ungrateful Heart. Whilst their previous releases traded in an explosive psychedelic noise-rock, Ungrateful Heart sees the Italian four-piece hone in on a sound rooted in classic ’70s punk and ’80s hardcore.
Revealing a deceptively hedonistic side to the band, the first single Love Me Do Again was penned by drummer Bruno Bassi while in lockdown. The track was “inspired by the different versions of the myth of Dionysus (the Greek god of wine, pleasure, madness and frenzied ecstasy) and an unexpected excitement caused by imagining how great it would be to be all together again. At the end of the song our fascination for The Sex Pistols can be felt, since Nico screams like Johnny Rotten.” Bruno continues: “In the video Nico plays the role of Dionysus and Claudia a maenad. Dionysus is the God associated with irrationality and the excesses of life and that’s what is behind our own name: ‘gluts’ is a term used to denote the unsold goods and symbolically expresses a surplus of energy like that which drives our music. ”
Although no less abrasive and confrontational in its use of ear-piercing feedback and hard-hitting riffs, the band say that Ungrateful Heart primarily take cues from the likes of Fugazi, Gang of Four, the PiL–Pistols canon and the Campana brothers’ long adoration of Italian and American hardcore punk. The album arrives off the back of 2019’s Dengue Fever Hypnotic Trip LP.
Recording over a tireless week living side by side and working in the studio around the clock, The Gluts — Claudia Cesana (bass/vocals), Bruno Bassi (drums) and Nicolò and Marco Campana (vocals/synths and guitar, respectively) — recorded Ungrateful Heart with Dutch producer and close collaborator Bob de Wit (A Place To Bury Strangers, Gnod, The Sonics). On the sessions, the intensity of which is mirrored in the fierce uncompromising attitude of the music itself, the band said: “Bob’s contribution to this album was essential. He pushed us beyond our limits. It was difficult, we can’t hide it, but it really was worth it.”
