ZIO CROCIFISSO

But let's go straight to the music. The album opener is a 13 minutes suite starting with a mesmerizing melody with the mute singing of Thea Ellingsen Grant (Juno) but it last less than 3 minutes, then it turns into dark, first with the metal guitar of Matteo Serenelli (Appetizers) then, after a short interlude featuring the vibrafone of Simen Ådnøy Ellingsen (Shamblemaths) turns again into a dark melody. Between Metal, Avant and Zeuhl with melodic interludes, including also a short jazzy part by bass and clarinet, there was the risk of messing up with too many things, but the transitions are smooth even when they feature a sudden pause. It doesn't transmit that sense of "disconnection" that sometimes appears in the epics.

Even if I should have studied Giovanni Verga at school, I must confess: I'm quite ignorant about his works, so I don't know if Metaxu is the Greek adverb for "Middle". THis track lasts 1/3 of the previous, but also this is a mixture of various themes, but the middle part between the metallic intro and outro, made of deep bass, keyboard and guitar is very cinematic.

"Margherita Legge Umberto G." (Margherita reads Umberto G." is Margherita Botta effectivley reading from a book. This is likely the war diary of a soldier of the fake republic built by Mussolini after the armistice signe in 1943 by Badoglio. It's an interesting track: I don't know if Margherita si effectively a young girl or she can model her voice to sound that way. The musical base fits perfectly with the speech and knowing the story, it can give goosebumps.

"Vince" can be a name or the Italian word for "Wins". It's few more than a minute of keyboards crossing the headphones left to right and vice versa. Not bad even if it's just an interlude, or maybe an intro to the following "La Malabestia Di Calafato ". The Malabestia, literally "bad beast" is instead a Flat bat, used in building wooden ships. The Calafato is the worker who makes the ships impermeable. Hard guitars, pauses in the vein of System Of a Down (at least to these ears), but of course closer to Post Rock or Avant Rock than to Nu Metal. The SOAD thing is about the pauses only. I could have mentioned the Moody Blues... As the other longer tracks, there's an alternance of hard parts with moments more melodic, often dark, until a sudden end. For what it's worth, I think it's my favorite track from this album.

It's very short: only 33 seconds, but it's incredible how these few notes can give the idea of the laboratory of an alchemist. "Speziale" is a word still used to indicate a Pharmacist. Listen to it keeping this in mind.

Being an album and a band name immersed into the Italian literature of the 19th and 20th century, I assume that "La Malora", tracks that closes the album, is referred to the omonym novel by Beppe Fenoglio. Malora can be translated as "Bad Luck". A slow rhythm for keyboards, clean guitar and mute vocals, this track could easily be put into a movie soundtrack. The vocals, quite operatoc remind to the music of Ennio Morricone. But of course, it can't be "only" this. The second part of the song is very different: if I had heard only this track, I would have thought of a chamber rock band. An excellent closer. Personally I would made the final coda of this track a little longer, to avoid a sudden end of the album, but it's good enough.

An excellent debut album by non-debutants. Looking for the next.