BAND YOU SHOULD KNOW

Band #9: Ivy Garden Of The Desert

(c) by Vic Balica

The center of European stoner scene seems to be in countries like Sweden, The Netherlands or Germany. Most people may not think that from behind the big wall of The Alps there are some fantastic and ambitious bands are prepared to rock and just wait to enter the stages of our heart. One of my favorite bands are one of them, let´s talk a bit about Ivy Garden Of The Desert from Trevisio, Italy. The band consists of Diego on guitar and vocals, Paolo on bass and Andrea on drums.

Starting in 2011 they built up three EP´s, The trilogy of The Ivy, each with a very special character. It could be described as the progressive, the stoner and the psychedelic one. In principle the music of The Ivy melts together a doomy atmosphere with some stoner riffing and a lot of heavy psychedelic, culminating in the absolute fantastic voice of Diego´s singing. The band is able to create a lot of different moods and feelings, but one thing is present at all songs and any time. You can feel the fun they have and the enthusiasm of that music easily takes over to the crowd beside stage or album listener. Yeah, and the sound of that three EP´s is totally superb, every single nuance will reach your ear, clear like crystal.

The first album, “Docile”, brings four pieces of big independence and the first song, “Ivy”, opens with a smooth and hypnotic part, kind of dialogue between bass and lead guitar, developing a mystic atmosphere of post rock. But with the powerful entrance of drummer Andrea the mood changes into a guitar drunken outbreak of hard and heavy rock music.  My personal favorite, and for me one of the greatest songs composed in the last years, is “Enchanting Odyssey”, a twelve minutes monster of creative changes and the most emotional, but strong and powerful vocals, perfectly made for goose bumps on the listener´s skin. To me this voice sounds like a stoner version of Pearl Jam´s Eddy Vedder, absolutely authentic and full of expression, and it´s followed by an ecstatic guitar freak out that blows you away. Totally untypical for stoner rock the band breaks after that wonderful power song and leads to the melodic and acoustic stoner ballade “Hang Glider”, opening with cello. Fantastic, you can feel the warmth of evening sun during you glide across a golden colored ocean. This song you will find on the third EP, covered with another curtain of electric energy and hard stoner riffs. That´s also a characteristic attribute of the band, just to build bridges between their albums and songs.
Have a look on “Enchanting Odyssey”, played live just a few months before, it´s tremendous:


When they composed the music for second album “Love Is Blood”, they took a stylistic change back to the fathers of desert rock. Lots of heavy riffs, dark bass lines and hypnotic gloomy rhythm showed a deep relationship to great old Kyuss, as you can hear probably best in “Ghost Station”, which is basically one chord of the guitar with deep drums and Diegos fantastic voice. But The Ivy always like to experiment, here on Love Is Blood shown in the very complex sound of “Glicine”, which could be understood as a refer to Docile, the first album. A slow pace and some acoustic guitar give once again a great example how they are able to play with emotions and moods. I think, this changing between hard, aggressive parts and that slow rough sounds is one of the biggest virtues in the music of Ivy Garden Of The Desert.

2013 the band finished their trilogy of EP´s with “I Ate Of The Plant And It Was Good”. This album is full of quotes to the first one, Docile. As named before you find a new version of the wonderful acoustic Hang Glider, now as an amplified cracker. In the middle part you find as a big contrast to the first version some of the hardest riffs of the band ever, a monotonous beaten chord, which is a stylistic reference to album two. And the first song Ivy, which started the first album, now gets it´s continuation in “Ivy2”. The Ivy trilogy begins and ends with Ivy, sounds easy and logically, but between this songs you learn a lot about the feelings of the band and their musical language.
The opener “Deeper Than Deep” starts very bass oriented and with hoarse voice and crooked guitar, later slowing down to a doomy, a bit post rock like atmosphere with shivering psyched guitar, in my opinion also a hint back to the days of Docile.
A new EP is ready to take off and the first long player will follow next time. Here you can see the first official video of the band, with Diego and Paolo performing a cool and funny adaption of Frankenstein, a song called “Life?” from the upcoming EP:


Ivy Garden Of The Desert will perform Freak Valley Festival in Germany at the end of May, we have waited a long time to see them live on stage.

The music of The Ivy is pure passion and devotion, the songs are fulfilled with intensity that let your mind rotate and your neck and legs move. An electrifying journey across an everlasting pasture of the worlds greatest music, rock´n roll.
“We are a band searching new experiences all the time, we don´t want to repeat us, just find new ways and walk on…” Diego has told us some times before. That´s what they did in the past and I´m sure they will do in future. And I know that it will be a good way to bring the desert feeling to us all.

CD´s:
Docile (2011)
Love Is Blood (2012)
I Ate Of The Plant And It Was good (2013)

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by Michael