Padre Pio

Think of when rock was a bit luxuriant, asexual and gleaming. Think Bowie and Lou Reed. Think of druggy, sharp-suited excess and eyeshadow on men. Think of a time when rock wasn't scruffy, but glistening with confidence.

Padre Pio's songs caress your eardrums with all of those things. Colour is a synthy glammy pop breeze, and Common Day is the great late 70's New York song you've never heard. It also, against all odds, achieves rock's most risky, difficult feat: a great Sax solo. Their songs are slightly pompous, eccentric and lithely predatory - all missing in most music now, and extremely welcome.

Surely Padre Pio aren't going to be gazing at the stars forever, wondering when they can strut their stuff in, I like to imagine, delightfully-cut suits. A band this swooning and sexy has to, and deserves to, end up foppishly jostling with the big boys. Brill. - A New Band a Day.com

With a largely Roxy-esque sound and the occasional talk of space invaders comes Padre Pio's six song outing, The Madeline EP. The work incorporates well written songs brought to fruition by David Mosey’s charismatic vocals juxtaposed with steady guitar, synths, and sax. "Common Day" is the standout, starting slow though reaching impact by way of a colorful guitar riff and saxophone.

- Parasitesandsycophants.com

Retro poppy art-rock is a label that might stick to Padre Pio, a band started by David Mosey in 2006. With melodic songs channeling mid-seventies David Bowie and Jonathan Richman, and a saxophone lifted out of the Roxy Music songbook, The Madeline EP is a warm mini pop album.

Produced by Joe McGinty (Psychedelic Furs) main man David Mosey's warm baritone bathe in the spotlight, the instrumentation wrapped around him like a silk sheet. - herecomestheflood.com

...sounds something like Hedwig and the Angry Inch meeting David Bowie and Leonard Cohen in a smoky cafe to chain smoke cartons of cigarettes. It's arty, theatrical, stuff that's pretty damn cool.

- thepopstereo.com

In their short two-year existence, Bushwick's Padre Pio have had more line-up changes than the New York Knicks. But the group - seemingly now a rotating squad of gifted side-men led by gifted lead singer / tunesmith David Mosey - is getting back to its origins and is poised to capitalize on the pop promise of their original batch of tunes.

Deeply steeped in the cool hooks and slight air of detached angst of Psychedelic Furs, later Roxy and 80s adult pop, their catalog - all 6 songs of it - is comprised completely of memorable material.

I'm not certain who the modern-day equivalent of John Hughes is, but Padre Pio would be the ones all over the soundtrack. Once again, if their tune "Madeline" doesn't convert you, then you don't like pop songs.

- Limewire.com

Admittedly, there is something kind of odd about this song. Some of it sounds very familiar, more of it feels off - it's just weird. Fortunately though, it's also good. I've repeatedly found myself sitting around and appreciating the season-appropriate music and the rather interesting way that the whole thing moves and unfolds. The Madeline EP is out now. - sideonetrackone.com

The Brooklyn Paper’s “Smash or Trash” panel convened once again in our DUMBO newsroom to review the new single by Bushwick-based Padre Pio. How does the band’s Roxy-Music-style tune, “Madeline,” hold up? Listen for yourself as Editor Gersh Kuntzman and the “Smash or Trash” team of Mike McLaughlin, Sarah Portlock and Ben Muessig weigh in.
(video)
http://www.brooklynpaper.com/stories/32/1/32_1_smash_trash.html - Thebrooklynpaper.com

Padre Pio has released an EP featuring a photo of Christ between cleavage, or so says the battleram. Their sound sounds liks a cross between David Bowie and Bruce Springsteen with a pinch of Julian Cope. In other words, within the punk and new wave sheen is a hint of 60’s pop, 70’s rock and folk, and in “Color” maybe Gary Numan meets Joy Division. In other words, the songs can be dark and moody but with some detail of optimism heard somewhere, be it a saxophone in “High Fives” or the piano work in “Common Day”.
Very interesting, curious to see what they’ll pull off with a full length.

- thisisbooksmusic.com

Padre Pio's The Madeline EP is a short little impressive effort that sounds nothing like the rest of New York right now. Oh no, Padre Pio are a literate, intelligent group that create lush, epic, theatrical songs that come off as the best combination of David Bowie, the Psychedelic Furs and Love Spit Love you've never heard.

The six songs that make up The Madeline EP are imaginative and dramatic, percolating to perfection as the songs build and build from a quiet whisper to a choir of artful instrumentation. With pianos, saxophones, harmonica's and of course the usual rock band set up, Padre Pio get swept up in creating pop that's almost too big for this EP. It's heady, emotional, and highly descriptive stuff and Padre Pio are so good at setting scenes and the pictures that go with them that you'll want to reach out to be part of the characters and scenes the band introduces. From the girl gone wrong on, "Madeline," to the modern girls of, "Shades of Rouge," The Madeline EP plays like an exciting novel of New York that you'll want to get lost in forever.

As with most EP's, The Madeline EP is disappointingly short. But within the six songs that make up The Madeline EP Padre Pio have come up with a record of beautiful pop music that's breathtaking, climatic, and deeply thrilling. The Madeline EP sweeps up all who listen into the words and the images that are associated with each of the songs and for 25 minutes or so New York seems even more electrifying then it already is.

- firstcoastnews.com

This The Madeline EP by Padre Pio just came in house and looking at the cover artwork, I can't quite tell if it's a woman or a man. It's quite androgynous, isn't it ? I would hazard a guess that it's a woman, possibly the Madeline.

The EP was released earlier this month and it was an easy six song listen. I did like the background piano on the title song, "Madeline", and something about her bleeding. Is she hurt? It's a mystery to me.

David Mosey's vocals has a vague resemblence to The Psychedelic Furs' Richard Butler. It was a surprise to find out that their keyboardist, Joe McGinty - who previously spent five years playing keys for the Furs! The other thing is that the EP reminds me so much of early 90s British alternative music - mainly focusing on the lead singer. None of the musical instruments (including the sax on "Common Day" or the girl-pop backup singers on "Whenever Moonlight") ever distracts you from Mosey's clear voice.

- weheartmusic.vox.com