Right I am going to do something I’ve been trying to avoid with reviews of late and that’s write in the first person – go on check through the other reviews I’ve written as they are second person or even third person in the cases of the introduction to the reviews. So why pray tell has it come to this I hear you cry?

There is of course the argument that all reviews, no matter how they are written are subjective and as I’m not really writing (typing to be accurate) some universal truth, then to a degree why should I continue in the third person? I know I’m trying to be impartial, to try and regal to you the reader what I can hear, more so than whether I enjoy it or not and maybe I’m wrong, but I’ve learnt that it is possible to write reviews of music in a fair, balanced manner and which isn’t to my liking, but may well be to others who appreciate that genre more.

Enough waffling though, for this one review I’ve dropped the second person as for me this has been a personal journey. In fact it has been so personal that I can’t do justice to the review without making this equally as personal.

Now within my music collection I have Super Furry Animals Mwng and plenty of Sigur Ros and what links these albums is that they are written in the language of the country where the band hails from. For the pedants out there Sigur Ros do at times use a made up language for their songs, but it is based on their Icelandic language so still counts. This is not to say that all musicians need to write in their mother tongue, but there is sometimes a problem when you attempt to sing in English when your first language isn’t English.

To some degree the problem of European bands singing in English is that the Eurovision Song Contest had labelled music of that ilk to be almost classed as kitsch with a niche following. This is the biggest hurdle that Italian rock band Sunday Recovery have to face when trying to break the English speaking market and the reason why I have lived with this album for so long. It has grown on me over the weeks to a stage where I can appreciate the music, maybe others will find it easier to immediately find that hook which drags them in, but for me it has taken some time to get to this stage.

Sunday Recovery already have a substantial following in Italy, have built up a decent reputation and are now embarking on trying to crack the British market. Ironic really when our focus is on bands who can crack America, it is sometimes forgotten that there are bands who see breaking into the British music market as an important developmental step. Formed back in 2009 when Gianluca Cucchiara (composer), Mirko Petrini (vocals) and Fabio Staffieri (guitar) began working together and added Fabio Testaferrata (drums) and Emanuele Nazzaro (bass) to form Sunday Recovery. The band have worked with lyricist Andrew James Whelan and also Porcupine Tree bassist Colin Edwin to create Coma, an album that the band hope will give them enough momentum to grow beyond their Italian roots.

On first listen to Sunday Recovery’s debut album Coma there are huge swathes of memories of the German rock act Scorpions, with many rock officionados being taken back to that oft played track Wind of Change, this may well turn many listeners off at this point or excite others and that’s really where Sunday Recovery will live or die by the critical sword.

Overall this is unashamedly full on rock music opening with Private Joke, the slightly muffled vocals being separated from the main theme by durms and guitars. Mirko has a classic rock voice, with a throatyness to the oration of each word, but there is power in there as well. The band themselves come across as a tightly knitted group of individuals who are happy to move between moments of lightness and heavy rock with great skill and aplomb.

I Know Better has a surprising acoustic guitar opening that would not have looked out of place during The Bends era Radiohead, but that lasts about 30 seconds before a guitar licks into place and eventually it all just rocks out. The track does return to the original theme although the drum underneath the acoustic guitar gives more flesh to the phrase and the heavy rocked out moment returns. However, this then allows Fabio to have his solo moment and throw a few shapes around with his guitar. The light and shade moments of I Know Better work well together, although heavy rockers might just want more darker moments to feel truly satisfied.

Title track Coma is more anguished than what has gone before, although whether intentional or not there is a rather irritating distorted sound in the background that I’m not sure is either due to the recording levels being out or a choice of the band. The flatlining sounding ending to Coma is not unexpected, although there’s something sadly lacking in Coma that doesn’t really grab me enough to feel truly satisfied by it.

Now what truly excites me is Young Blood as it is different; opening with a lovely bass line riff the pace is a little quicker and has more in common with indie music than it does rock music and for me that’s definitely appealing. The guitar riffing leads into a rapid drum line that is enthusiastic and very refreshing. There is also a piano moment that hints at Muse influences and yes they still introduce rock elements, but overall Young Blood feels energetic and provides Sunday Recovery with another string to their bow, with the choral ending of “Move on me…move in you” having all the hallmarks of anthemtic chanting / clapping from an appreciative audience.

Pornstar lies in that difficult ground of sounding humorous, although lyrically revealing a much darker side. The repetitive use of “living like a pornstar” juxtaposed with phrases such as “hey won’t you love me” and “your eyes never looked at me this way” give an empty feeling to the idea of a Pornstar being a fulfilling vocation. Possibly the heaviest track on the album, although it does feature beeps, clicks and moans (what else did you expect!).

Coma ends with the track Life_Sweet.com which attempts to meld the thuds of electronica with muffled rock riffs, yet it’s the choral break which means the track loses the electronica and allows the rock elements to come through, eventually backed with soft synthesised string moments as the track concludes abruptly. Frustratingly I would have preferred the battle between electronica and rock to continue through the piece, but that’s a personal preference and possibly wouldn’t have fitted into the overall package and yet it almost begs the question of why introduce the electronic opening to then only dash it away so quickly.

In summary Sunday Recovery are extremely competent musicians, who have taken a considerable amount of time to really work Coma into a rock album that should be appreciated by many listeners. For me I’ve learnt a valuable lesson in not judging music on first impressions, although sometimes we do not have the time to do real justice to what we are hearing. Maybe as challenging as this review has been, I have found it a lot easier writing in the first person narrative and maybe that is my concession to myself.

Reviewed by Jimbo Walsh.

Sunday Recovery's debut album Coma is out on 3 October 2011, but in the meantime see what you think of the video for Coma below.