In Praise of the Madeline EP…
Parasites & Sycophants
With a largely Roxy-esque sound and the occasional talk of space invaders comes Padre Pio’s six song outing, The Madeline EP. The work incorporates well written songs brought to fruition by David Mosey’s charismatic vocals juxtaposed with steady guitar, synths, and sax. “Common Day” is the standout, starting slow though reaching impact by way of a colorful guitar riff and saxophone. The songs were composed by Portland transplant David Mosey and produced by New York keyboardist Joe McGinty.
Here Comes the Flood
Retro poppy art-rock is a label that might stick to Padre Pio, a band started by David Mosey in 2006. With melodic songs channeling mid-seventies David Bowie and Jonathan Richman, and a saxophone lifted out of the Roxy Music songbook, The Madeline EP is a warm mini pop album.
Produced by Joe McGinty (Psychedelic Furs) main man David Mosey’s warm baritone bathe in the spotlight, the instrumentation wrapped around him like a silk sheet.
Cerulean’s Love of Music
If I didn’t know who this was, I would swear it was a long-lost Roxy Music/Bryan Ferry recording. David Mosey’s singing is pleading without being pathetic. It’s passionate and romantic–the kind of voice that made young New Wavers in the 80’s swoon (not talking about me, or anything…). Of course when you start picking apart the lyrics, it’s a little less ideally romantic. As you listen to the song, you realize he’s comparing Madeline to a holy figure…if your religion is cheap sex. She’s the Mary in the Church of Las Vegas. She accepts “communion under her red skirt”. He tells her to be aware, though, because her “church is burning”. There’s a true sadness in the line “He reminds you of dad, so you’re going home with him tonight.” Like any good romantic poet, Mosey sees the truth and the tragedy all as aspects of a greater romantic story. One of the values of bands like Padre Pio, Roxy Music and Something For Rockets (another nouveau New Wave band) is that they can find the beautiful, the romantic and the yearning in even “questionable” places. Even Madeline, as she’s accepting her flesh communion, needs someone to appreciate her as a person.
First Coast News
Padre Pio’s The Madeline EP is a short little impressive effort that sounds nothing like the rest of New York right now. Oh no, Padre Pio are a literate, intelligent group that create lush, epic, theatrical songs that come off as the best combination of David Bowie, the Psychedelic Furs and Love Spit Love you’ve never heard.
The six songs that make up The Madeline EP are imaginative and dramatic, percolating to perfection as the songs build and build from a quiet whisper to a choir of artful instrumentation. With pianos, saxophones, harmonica’s and of course the usual rock band set up, Padre Pio get swept up in creating pop that’s almost too big for this EP. It’s heady, emotional, and highly descriptive stuff and Padre Pio are so good at setting scenes and the pictures that go with them that you’ll want to reach out to be part of the characters and scenes the band introduces. From the girl gone wrong on, “Madeline,” to the modern girls of, “Shades of Rouge,” The Madeline EP plays like an exciting novel of New York that you’ll want to get lost in forever.
As with most EP’s, The Madeline EP is disappointingly short. But within the six songs that make up The Madeline EP Padre Pio have come up with a record of beautiful pop music that’s breathtaking, climatic, and deeply thrilling. The Madeline EP sweeps up all who listen into the words and the images that are associated with each of the songs and for 25 minutes or so New York seems even more electrifying then it already is.
The Pop! Stereo
…sounds something like Hedwig and the Angry Inch meeting David Bowie and Leonard Cohen in a smoky cafe to chain smoke cartons of cigarettes. It’s arty, theatrical, stuff that’s pretty damn cool.
A New Band a Day
Think of when rock was a bit luxuriant, asexual and gleaming. Think Bowie and Lou Reed. Think of druggy, sharp-suited excess and eyeshadow on men. Think of a time when rock wasn’t scruffy, but glistening with confidence.
Padre Pio’s songs caress your eardrums with all of those things. Colour is a synthy glammy pop breeze, and Common Day is the great late 70’s New York song you’ve never heard. It also, against all odds, achieves rock’s most risky, difficult feat: a great Sax solo. Their songs are slightly pompous, eccentric and lithely predatory - all missing in most music now, and extremely welcome.
Surely Padre Pio aren’t going to be gazing at the stars forever, wondering when they can strut their stuff in, I like to imagine, delightfully-cut suits. A band this swooning and sexy has to, and deserves to, end up foppishly jostling with the big boys. Brill.
Limewire
In their short two-year existence, Bushwick’s Padre Pio have had more line-up changes than the New York Knicks. But the group - seemingly now a rotating squad of gifted side-men led by gifted lead singer / tunesmith David Mosey - is getting back to its origins and is poised to capitalize on the pop promise of their original batch of tunes.
Deeply steeped in the cool hooks and slight air of detached angst of Psychedelic Furs, later Roxy and 80s adult pop, their catalog - all 6 songs of it - is comprised completely of memorable material.
I’m not certain who the modern-day equivalent of John Hughes is, but Padre Pio would be the ones all over the soundtrack. Once again, if their tune “Madeline” doesn’t convert you, then you don’t like pop songs.
This is Book’s Music
Padre Pio has released an EP featuring a photo of Christ between cleavage, or so says the battleram. Their sound sounds liks a cross between David Bowie and Bruce Springsteen with a pinch of Julian Cope. In other words, within the punk and new wave sheen is a hint of 60’s pop, 70’s rock and folk, and in “Color” maybe Gary Numan meets Joy Division. In other words, the songs can be dark and moody but with some detail of optimism heard somewhere, be it a saxophone in “High Fives” or the piano work in “Common Day”.
Very interesting, curious to see what they’ll pull off with a full length.