giooOoO1987

For someone like me, who when faced with new releases classified in trendy genres tends to flee to the familiar and comforting, preferring classic albums (may Verdena always be praised), where one often finds sonic nuances missed after countless listens, discovering a band like Franco e la Repubblica dei Mostri is an exhilarating experience. The band themselves describe themselves as a group of friends who make sound exploration, distant from any genre classification, their philosophy.

After the excellent self-titled debut in 2016, available on both Spotify and Youtube, the band reiterates and refines their musical proposal: take as a reference the late '90s pop songwriting of artists like Moltheni and Otto Ohm, the Anglo-Saxon indie rock of bands like Typhoon, the post-rock of Explosion in The Sky and Mogwai, plus some experimentation drawing from what the Italian scene has offered in the last 10 years, and you’ll have "Sciarra Chitarra Musica Battaglia".

The record is very intricate, with well-crafted songs, where the acoustic guitar and the singer’s voice act as the glue throughout the work, alongside Marina Mussapi’s cello which provides a melodic carpet to the typically acoustic rock structures.

The tracks speak of journeys, narrate the life of that generation raised in the ’90s who found themselves experiencing growing up between two sometimes opposing realities: the town where they were born and the city where they studied or work.

Giving a single interpretation to the lyrics is indulgent. The lyrics, which demonstrate Adriano Aricò’s skill as a lyricist, refer to many experiences, painful or pleasant, with which it’s right to cut ties ("Sciarra Chitarra Musica Battaglia" is a Palermitan nursery rhyme with which children in Palermo seal the end of relationships, including friendships). This album is a work that, very rarely, does not tire, sparking curiosity. Choosing between one track or another does no justice to a work born to be listened to in its entirety.