BACK IN BLACK

Angela Petrilli emerges from grief with a new band, a new EP and an inspired outlook on guitar.

- JOE BOSSO

ON HER JUST-RELEASED EP, The Voices (DistroKid), Los Angeles-based guitarist and singer Angela Petrilli comes on like a true original, delivering smart, tough and soulful blues rock that brims with blood-pounding guitar playing on a set of songs that artfully examines the highs and lows of the human spirit without being obvious or overdrawn.

The record is a triumph all right, but it's one Petrilli hadn't planned on making. Until 2019, the guitarist was one half of the Americana duo Roses and Cigarettes. On the heels of the release of the group's second album, Echoes & Silence, Petrilli's longtime bandmate Jenny Pagliaro passed away from stage 4 breast cancer. While grieving her friend and musical partner, Petrilli didn't pick up the guitar for months. The very sight of the instrument reminded her too much of what she'd lost.

"My time in Roses and Cigarettes was so beautiful, and I had to honor it properly," she explains. "I decided I had to live my life. I traveled to places where I have an accent. When I got back home, I still didn't know what I would do, but my friend Eric Tessmer invited me to play a show in Austin. Getting back onstage, I thought, Oh...this does bring me joy! I remember this, and I missed it." Petrilli got back to it with a vengeance.

She assembled a group she dubbed the Players - bassist Brett Grossman, drummer Stephen Haaker, keyboardist Bobby Victor, percussionist Vic Vanacore III and harmonica player Matt Lomeo - and tested out her new material at shows in and around L.A. ahead of recording sessions at the famed Sunset Sound Studios. "It was one of the best and easiest times I've ever had making a record," Petrilli says. "I never thought I'd be a band leader, but it turns out that I actually like it.