On Jennifer Gentle's fourth full-length, the departure of co-founder and drummer Alessio Gastaldello has rendered the northern-Italian outfit into a one-man project. Not that followers will notice the change: The Midnight Room delivers more of the genuinely off-kilter psych-pop that marked the band's eight-year career, music off-kilter enough to make Jennifer Gentle an acquired taste for fans of Sub Pop's more mainstream breadwinners, like The Shins.  Full text...

The circus skiffle of simpler tunes "Take My Hand" and "Electric Princess" will likely appeal to people who think the Doors' best songs were "People are Strange" and "Alabama Song." Even with their basic structures, it's still impressive to think that Fasolo put down all of the songs' parts himself in the studio. (Only on "Electric Princess" does another musician appear.) We might just have an Italian musical prodigy on our hands here. Franchetti and Resphigi would be proud.  Full text...

Hearing The Midnight Room now only makes me wish more folks would embrace the poppy melodic side of the psychedelic coin more often.   Full text...

Had Vincent Price and Federico Fellini ever collaborated, Jennifer Gentle could have easily provided a fitting soundtrack to their cinematic creation. Fasolo's melodic creations have both the supernatural appeal of the former and the eccentric surrealism of the latter, mashed into a wonderfully arty style of pop. The Midnight Room is truly one of a kind.   Full text...

The Midnight Room is a masterful exercise in creating a peculiar and absorbing sense of mood and place. But, as befits an album born of extreme isolation, its painstaking, constricting song structures can also make The Midnight Room an unwelcoming place to be.  Full text...

So what if The Midnight Room isn't the sort of Italian masterpiece as, say, "David" or "The Mona Lisa." It's a start: Italy has rock of which it can be proud.  Full text...

The Midnight Room is everything that Valende isn’t, making them a perfect paired set. And it rewards repeated listens with enough production depth to always find new, hidden sounds.  Full text...

Certain parts of 'The Midnight Room' are so creepy that if the neighbours found out what Fasolo was doing in his basement they'd probably lynch him. Let's pray that they never do if the result is albums as excitingly unhinged as this.  Full text...