Affluente
Libera Fame

"He believes he deserves eternal life

lies down under a roof and waits for his turn

in front of the empty wall of the good living room.

Believes, believes, believes and dies happy"

Simply the perfect portrait of the average Italian, one who, as the great Mario Monicelli loved to repeat, always wants someone to think for him.

Erecting barricades worthy of the French Revolution of '48, he locks himself in his small world, cultivating futile hobbies, believing in frivolous ideals of security, family, and religion.

Yet in 2006 there are still those who have hope, or rather, there are still those who find the strength to try to overturn the order of things.

And they don't do it by clinging to now shabby slogans, repeated like a stuck LP, eternally condemned to repeat words now devoid of any meaning, but by thoroughly analyzing a rotten system that leads hundreds of people to completely lose sight of the concept of free will.

Hardcore Fundamentalism, as they themselves call it, is the music of Affluente.

A band formed in 1992, author of 4 other CDs before "Libera Fame", yet never as in this one, does the anger, the frustration aroused by a society that has now reduced us all to mannequins worthy of De Chirico, depriving us in a subtle way, and for this even worse, of the will to choose, emerge.

"The state cannot rid itself of the claim to determine the will of the individual,

to speculate and rely on it.

For the state, it is necessary that no one has a will of their own.

If someone had it, the state would have to exclude them.

If everyone had it, it would lead to its abolition"

So if you have already given up your own will, the free will that distinguishes man from beast, as governed by reason and not by instinct, you can also close this review, and go back to nodding approvingly in front of the new initiatives of the splendid Italian government...this group is NOT for you, you will not be able to appreciate the quality of the lyrics, which are never banal as they intertwine perfectly with the rhythm splendidly built on simple, yet tremendously effective, beats as a base for the vocal outbursts of vocalist Marco Cannella (who unfortunately officially left the project in 2008).

Besides the tracks from which I drew the two excerpts mentioned above, "Dentro me" and the eponymous "Libera Fame" (a tribute to the poet Cesare Pavese), the best episode of the album, and probably one of the group's best songs, is undeniably "La sovranità del Riso".

"The spirit of work must know how to destroy the exaltation of the sacrifice of work

the innate chance of power to be obeyed"

An additional note of merit goes to the cover art, which depicts the brigand woman Michelina de Cesare, frontally in her old-time beauty, and on the back, mutilated and tortured by the Piedmontese liberation army one hundred and forty-some years ago.

P.S.

I also had the chance to appreciate them live, and they really did not disappoint expectations...in front of an enthusiastic group of 40, 50 people, in a social center in my area, they managed to captivate us like never before, without falling into clichés, but with the strength of their lyrics, their music, and the anger they managed to convey to us, and more than anger, at least personally, the desire to try once again to change things.