"And in the end, the love you give is equal to the love you deny". With this

 laconic sentence of vague Beatlesian memory, Crevasses and Puddles, the first

 song of Ladybirds, the last album of the Italian band, ends. If we think about it

 for a moment, the value of life has been deeply attacked and diminished in the

 last three years, because the pandemic and the war in Ukraine, have shocked us

with (thrown in our face) its less acceptable and at the same time more natural

 aspect, namely death. And as a result, even the role of love has been

 profoundly downsized, sometimes flattening out by compulsion or, on the

 contrary, exploding uncontrollably, in all its strength; a sort of coincidence of

 extremes and consequent loss of its enormous power. Both must regain the

 balance and the role they had won in the pre-pandemic era; and this new album

means-wants to be a wish in that sense.

The main novelties of the seventh official record of Twenty Four Hours,

 entitled Ladybirds, are the four tracks sung in italian (which had already

 appeared in the single A i u t ò l a) and the entry of the saxophonist Ruggero

 Condó. The remaining line-up is the same from the Left-To-Live sessions

 onwards (2014) and the historical core Lippe-Paparelli-Lippe is unchanged

 since 1987. The album was recorded in numerous sessions starting from

 August 2021 in Fano (the bases live, very funny!) up to the last guitar finishing

 in Locorotondo (Antonio), passing through Turin (Marco and Elena's voices)

, Pineto (Ruggero's sax) and again Fano (voices, keyboards, some parts of bass

 and guitar with Paolo-Bass).

As for the choice of sounds and arrangements, after the experience of

 Venetian production with Andrea Valfrè, we decided to go back to the origins

 (The Smell of The Rainy Air, Oval Dreams) with a self-production

 conducted by Paolo, but that involved, in an exhausting work of comparison for

 any production choice, all the components in equal measure.

The delicate phases of recording and mixing were conducted with the same

criteria as the previous albums, preserving as much as possible the natural timbre

 and dynamics. The mixing, all digital, was carried out from May to July 2022,

 with the invaluable help of 2 great professionals in the audio sector: Fabio

 Serra and Dario Ravelli (the latter also took care of the mastering phase),

 already collaborators with parallel projects by Elena and Marco (Feronia,

 Nirnaeth), while Andrea Valfrè mixed in analog domain the single that will

 precede the release of the album, "Unexpected Results".

The themes of the songs are as always social, introspective and multifaceted:

 love, permanent war, discrimination of the types of immigrants, but above all an

 unprecedented, autobiographical and highly original dedication to the artistic

 work of the band in these 34 years of activity that is expressed in the poignant

 ballad "Una Perla Vive Nascosta Tutta la Vita".

The structure (typology) of the songs is also very variable: some are very simple

 and without particular overlap compared to what was recorded live (Crevasses

 & Puddles, Incantesimo K44, Ghost Pension), while three pieces in particular

 present the classic Progressive-Psychedelic structure (Caroline , Eterno

 Grembo che Dona, Why Should I Care for Strangers!).

Finally, the title and the extensive graphic references to ladybugs, which,

 however, are hidden in the disc and are "discovered" only by opening the CD

 package, just as if they were a pearl, trying to propose an alternative philosophy

 of life that is decidedly the polar opposite of prevailing madness that has found

 nothing better than a bloody war, as a response to the hardship and deaths of

 two years of the pandemic.

Personnel

Paolo Lippe: Keyboards, Vocals, Bassline, Ukulele, Virtual Drums and

 Creative Mixing.

Antonio Paparelli: Lead Electric and Acoustic Guitar

Marco Lippe: Drums, Percussion, Rototoms, Vocals, Piano on Tracks 2 and 7

Ruggero Condò: Tenor and Soprano Saxophones

Paolo (Bass) Sorcinelli: Bass, Classical and Electric Guitar

Elena Lippe: Vocals

Guest Musician

Francesco D’Orazio plays a 1711 Guarneri Violin on “Hypocrite and Slacker

 God”

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