Artist: Stigma
Label: I Scream Records
Release: 2008
Length: 39:52
Rating: 3/5
Vinnie Stigma needs no special introduction. A founding member of New York hardcore legends Agnostic Front, also known for his stint with their buddies in Madball, he decided that this time he’d grab the reins and play boss himself! Maybe he figured: “If Roger (Miret, Agnostic Front vocalist) can do his own thing in The Disasters, then I’m doing mine too!”
Now you’re drooling, thinking a fresh hardcore record is headed your way, in the most petrified form of New York hardcore. Wrong. What Vinnie set out to do for his own soul is plain, straight-up street punk. Very melodic in pulse, with the obligatory gang-shout backing vocals in the choruses.
The thing brings absolutely nothing new to the street punk field. Cookie-cutter melodic predictability, a modest approach to mixing up tonalities. Fair enough, we’re talking punk here. Directness, arrogance, spitting and whining. Despite the formula, this album has a certain special oomph, a direct, living embrace that we owe to a seriously experienced guy at the helm who knows how to serve this stuff up in the studio! The album is soaked in a hardcore production feel, even though stylistically it’s shifted into a completely different sphere.
So there. Those of you who catch fire instantly will get the urge, listening to “New York Blood”, to go get hammered with your buddies at the nearest pub and, while watching the final of the South American football championship, come up with a brand-new terrace anthem yourselves. I’m hopelessly partial to drunks, what can I say. Vinnie, on the other hand, definitely overdoes his unshakable pride in the grimy gangster backstreets of New York, even though he’s a pure-blooded Italian, remembered by his mother alone as Vincent Rigatoni Cappucchino, born in Turin!
Vinnie is no guitar virtuoso, nor a good singer, but whatever he takes on, he clearly has outrageous charisma and soul. And there’s plenty of that on this record too. Some musicians simply have the gift of stressing their feelings with a very simple note, authentically and directly, and it always works, because the vibe it creates on the record wins you over in an instant. The man knows how to bring out a fluid, simple riff (though he doesn’t play guitar on the record, he’s a great conductor), a nice mix of adrenaline, anger, as well as hedonistic, boozy intellect and “party time”! Vinnie’s busted voice works great in the songs, though in its hunt for shallowness, in a track like Hole in My Heart, it still goes over the edge of good taste. The songs, on the other hand, successfully defy this bizarre simplicity and the trivial fixability of a street-level “hell-raiser” punk rock ride, since they’re imbued with the traditional oomph Vinnie masterfully breathed into them. No question, real New York blood runs in his veins (though he hails from Turin, Italy), without which hardcore would never have blossomed like it did. Among the thirteen tracks there are three covers, from 7 Seconds (the commanding Young Till I Die – found only on the European version of this album) and Forced Reality (15 Pints, We’re Not Alone), and they work great.
This is an album that won’t be of much interest to Agnostic Front fans. But it can fire up all lovers of rowdy street punk rock with a generous dose of alcohol in the blood, bands like Blue Bloods or Stars & Stripes. “New York Blood” brings nothing earth-shattering. Just a big dose of heart, which is certainly enough, and Vinnie Stigma, the mobster ugly mug that decorates the booklet of this album, proves he’s by no means running out of creative steam.
Line-up
Vinny Stigma – vocals
Josh Tilotta – guitar
Phil Caivano – guitar
Mike Gallo – bass
Luke Rota – drums
Production
Phil Caivano
Tracklist
01. NY Blood
02. Me Reflection
03. Hard Livin’
04. Misery To Milestone
05. Hole In My Heart
06. Trouble
07. Still Crucified
08. Turning The Tide
09. We’re Not Alone
10. Blurry Nights
11. 15 Pints
12. We Are The Boys
13. Young Till We Die (European bonus track)
