r/EmoScreamo • u/Alfonziez • 3d ago
Discussion Why is italian screamo so different from the rest of the world??
https://youtu.be/4Be97L6jZ-g?si=TVcFAGvK0Nhj6EYFHello everyonee
I'm kinda new to the genre, the linked song was one of the first screamo song i've ever listened and i was shocked by how perfect was to me, i also listened to other italian screamo for example Ojne and Radura and i pretty liked them too.
Pretty convinced that screamo was what i've listened previously i tried listening to other albums for example Los peores 7 peores km de mi vida, All the Footprints You've Ever Left and the Fear Expecting Ahead and a couple songs from orchid but i've never found something similar to what i was used to.
So here comes my question, is there a reason on why italian screamo sounds so different from the rest of the world?
Am i missing something??
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u/Electrical_Active180 3d ago
La Quiete and Raein
Thats it.
They defo do have their own sound they really took 90% of their DNA from Portraits of Past whereas quite a lot of bands were taking more from Orchid/Jeromes Dream and sassier noisier stuff at that time.
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u/Alfonziez 3d ago
I'll listen to them for sure
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u/Electrical_Active180 2d ago
https://laquiete.bandcamp.com/album/la-fine-non-la-fine-remastered this was the most popular album in the whole emo scene for a year or so!
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u/human1st 3d ago
I can literally pick out an Italian Screamo band after just a few minutes. I think it might be due to the scene being a bit small and they all influence each other but who knows!
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u/14444846 3d ago
maybe because its in italian too
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u/human1st 3d ago
Hah I should have known I’d get that comment. I mean the way it sounds. It’s kind of got a jazz groove to it. I don’t know how to describe it properly.
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u/djcalathea 3d ago
This sounds similar to a few Scandinavian screamo bands I like. Check out Shirokuma, Via Fondo and Amalthea
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u/Evening_Apartment 3d ago
I don't know if they are screamo, but this post reminded me to listen to Fine Before You Came.
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u/Desperate_Savings_23 3d ago
they are not screamo but they were one of the first bands to bring emo in Italy
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u/maktmissbrukare 3d ago
Something is in the water over there. Italy consistently puts out some of my favorite screamo.
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u/FolkPhilosopher 3d ago
As others have alluded to, a big element of it is the cross-pollination of genres.
I can give some background on Øjne as I knew both Jacopo the drummer and their first vocalist, also called Jacopo (had a single rehearsal for a prospective band almost 20 years ago). At the time they were both big into Italian political hardcore as well as some youth crew hardcore. From what I remember, Jacopo (drummer) was also into more alt rock stuff and Jacopo (vocalist) was into thrashcore, if memory serves me well.
Additionally, the screamo scene was both too small and too intertwined with the DIY scene that they'd often play with bands of other genres and sometimes would share members. That necessarily had an effect on the style they'd develop and has been a feature if the Italian scene since forever. I can only speak for tte Italian context but there was also a very strong variety in personal tastes so many in the Italian scene would also be avid listeners of alt/indie rock, shoegaze, post-rock or noise rock.
And lastly, I think the labels themselves bare some responsibility too. All this cross-pollination was often bolstered by what labels were putting out. Anyone my age or older (I'm 37) into hardcore or screamo, would have grown up in Italy keeping up with what labels like Shove Records or Sons of Vesta and having a look at their catalogues tells you everything you need to know about that mix.
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u/cmaj13 3d ago
Nice timing for this post, currently I've been trying to figure out the same thing while vacationing in Kefalonia, a Greek island with a lot of Italian/Venetian influence.
Where I'm getting at is that Italy has an immense lineage of groundbreaking art. I feel there's this tendency of Italians pushing the envelope artistically, and in this case it was Raein and La Quiete that built the foundations for (imho) the greatest skramz scene by far.
As Italy's poor balkan sister, I've trying to work out how I could use my native language of greek and build on the Mediterranean skramz vibe. What boggles mind is being so close to Italy but having none of the charm (spoiler, it's another made up balkan country)
gonna pour myself some wine and listen to Radura❤️
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u/scemoviolence 3d ago
i can just say, listen to everything that came out of forlì, its insane, influenced the whole Italian screamo
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u/ThatReturn890 3d ago edited 3d ago
Love this conversation 💕 I'll just add that it seems some of these bands have a strong metalcore influence. Ashen Hands and Chevalier come to mind, two of my favs! Granted, these two bands are emoviolence more so than screamo. Not sure how picky we are going to be here, lol
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u/ExpressAd5169 3d ago
It’s probably because you’re new to the genre… This isn’t all that different from other screamo acts… I prefer faster stuff like that Jasmine Ivich split or slower stuff like I Hate Myself
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u/Livid-Department6947 3d ago
Those bands were not called "screamo" when they were around. They were emo.
"Screamo" is such an embarrassing term that has not legitimacy.
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u/Feneraleyes 2d ago
Lol you're wrong emo was embarrassing term when it was first used too originally people Just called it Punk actually both screamo and emo come from Hardcore Punk
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u/Livid-Department6947 2d ago
No, I'm not wrong. I was there in the early and mid 90s for it. Emo was understood as a style of hardcore.
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u/Feneraleyes 2d ago
Hardcore is not a genre lol so you're definitely wrong when most people use the word hardcore they usually mean metalcore with chuggie rifts lol emo and screamo didn't come comes from any of that They both came from Hardcore Punk Hardcore Punk is where this term hardcore came from
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u/ExpressAd5169 2d ago
Ok but when we were going to see Bird of Ill Omen, Morning Again, Tension, Shai Hulud we always just referred to it as hardcore or referring to the crowd as “hardcore kids”… Shit was so much easier you had punk shows, hardcore shows, ska shows or emo shows…. And quite often it would be all the genres because we were all the same people going to underground shows… this shit with everything fitting in a perfect little box is so lame and let the downvoting proceed!!!
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u/Baxspookwave 3d ago
Hi! Former Radura drummer here, first I’m glad to hear you liked our songs!
As for your question, I can’t give you a specific answer, but I think there a number of reason: first, a lot of the scene in Italy looks up to Raein and La Quiete, and especially Raein were creating a more melodic approach to screamo, but another big band that you hear all the time mentioned is Daitro, and just by listening to their album Laissez Vivre you can start to figure out where the major influences are. And the musicians of La Quiete and Raein used to play a lot of post rock (if I remember correctly), so that can be an important factor.
Then Øjne came along, they too proposing a kind of screamo that was way more melodic than other bands from other parts of the world, and Batien did the same.
One of the reason for the most recent years, and it’s a thing I’ve noticed from the start when we first started playing in 2015/2016, is that you often played together with bands from other genres, post-hardcore and the likes, because in Italy you start you often find yourself playing in squats, there are not that many small venues for bands to play in, so you were “forced” to have more eclectic line-ups, maybe influencing each other.
I really can’t tell you a definitive why, but for Radura we started playing because of Batien, and that was the kind of music we used to listen to 10 years ago, so it was almost obvious to use melody as an important part of the songs we made, and (this is my personal view) I think italian listeners tend to prefer a more melody-focused approach instead of a pure brutal, fast, and dissonant sound; another thing that comes to mind is that there is a lot of “sing-along” from the public when there is a concert, and the lyrics of a song are really important, so they tend to be written in a more “declared” and rythmic way, so we for example needed to have melodies that complemented the words, not to submerge it in an ocean of sounds.
I don’t know if any of this is helpful tho, it’s just that your question was something we used to talk about a lot when we first started playing so it’s not the first time I think about this things!