Italia 90 - Live at the Exchange, Bristol - 23rd February 2023

Here’s a question that hasn’t been answered in over 40 years: what is the next stage after post-punk? Post-post punk? Punk 2.0?

Of course technically the answer was ‘new wave’ back in the early 1980s, but what of the 21st century iteration?

Perhaps, as we live in a time of sequels, remakes and everything all at once, we are destined to have to manage with only a handful of genre titles. That’s your lot, music journalists (ahem). Work with it.

Which is just as well, because south Londoners Italia 90 have been drinking from the post-punk well for 7 years, releasing music at a snail’s pace until they finally unleashed their fine debut album Living Human Treasure back in January.

Indeed, it’s reflective of modern Britain: we aren’t evolving, we are stagnating, and the quartet successfully harness that through their intentionally repetitive lyrics (or message discipline, as they call it in politics).

https://www.live4ever.uk.com/2023/02/review-italia-90-exchange-bristol/