Bar Italia

“Some Like It Hot” is a 1959 film starring Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis, and Jack Lemmon that chronicles the adventures of a group of offbeat musicians. It is fun, sensual, unbridled and eternal. “Some Like It Hot” is also the London trio’s new album bar italia, and certain parallels are not coincidental. The album pulses with romance, intrigue, self-discovery and sensual rapture among yearning rock pieces, enchanted folk pop, stunned ballads and indefinable moments that surprise you like a ray of sunshine at five in the afternoon. The record represents the synthesis of the inner world shared by Nina Cristante, Jezmi Tarik Fehmi and Sam Fenton-three songwriters who have moved beyond their underground roots to embrace a bold and panoramic horizon.

The evolution of their sound-from early home recordings as pencil sketches (in 2023 the band even presented an exhibition of their drawings) to the broad, bright brushstrokes of “Some Like It Hot”-has been forged through a relentless pace of songwriting and touring. When Bar Italia emerged from the underground in 2023 with two critically acclaimed albums released within months of each other on Matador – the measured “Tracey Denim” and the majestic “The Twits” – they were a shy band, avoiding eye contact, starting sets in the dark and disappearing backstage soon after. In the years since, they have crisscrossed the globe, with headlining concerts from Istanbul to Tokyo, series of sold-out dates in New York and Los Angeles, and appearances at festivals such as Corona Capital, Glastonbury, and Coachella. With more than 160 concerts around the world between 2023 and 2024, they dispelled any aura of mystery by transforming themselves into a muscular exhibitionist quintet capable of delivering multiple encores-just as comfortable inciting festival pogoing as in intimate moments.

“Some Like It Hot” chronicles this journey: a collection of rock songs that voraciously embrace the main stage.

The italia bars combined the seriousness and depth of their themes with a taste for spectacle. These are songs that turn eccentricities into great refrains, finding elevation in tension and playing with identity, emotion, and performance to the point of blurring boundaries. That 1959 Hollywood classic from which the album takes its name ends with the famous line, “Well, nobody’s perfect.” This record, however, comes pretty close.