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And after their explosive debut, in 2004 the six ska-loving Salentines return with a new work. A lot was expected from them; much water had passed under the bridge since their previous self-titled album: "Paris" and "Ricominciamo" had been played extensively on the radio, national TV had noticed them (even offering them a spot on the official Iene compilation from Italia 1), MTV and AllMusic had their videos in heavy rotation, and there was a mega-tour across the entire peninsula... and here is your Christmas gift. When a debut goes particularly well, one expects at least a worthy follow-up, which frankly seems to be lacking here.
Certainly, you can feel the contribution of prestigious arrangers and sophisticated mixing tools (the previous CD was produced on a low budget in the makeshift studio set up by Cesko in Aradeo), but perhaps it is precisely this setup that steals the genuineness of the beginnings.
It starts right away with the title track, and you realize that Apres have grown, matured even in their lyrics: Cesko lashes out against the homogenization of society that measures us only as numbers and not as people. They return to being jokers only for two brief moments, "La Patchanka" (an overwhelming rhythm projected into a live dimension, with an irresistibly comic video-comic) and "Sale la febbre" (a forerunner of all "Sciamu a ballare" by the South, a text with no pretense of seriousness or any commitment).
All the other tracks flow by colorlessly and without leaving a real mark, dragging along like good ska-punk-rock rhythms to be performed live while passing around a good bottle of Salento red wine (lu mieru). "Simu li pacci" emerges as an immediate invective against patients kept locked up in sad hospitals, labeled as mad and filled with psychiatric drugs often without real need. Okay, nice committed theme, but was it really necessary? Amid an album meant to be the continuation of the party started two years earlier, this text (important and thoughtful though it may be) feels out of place like a fish out of water.
The track for which I believe it's worth listening to the entire album is "Sud-est". They return, following the previous "Terra", to one of the themes dearest and most successful to Après, that of love for the land, Salento. The lyrics of "Sud-Est" are a small, vividly colored watercolor of the Terra d'Otranto, featuring the yellow of the sun burning landscapes and thoughts, the blue of the sea that blinds and disorients, and the obsessive rhythms of the tarantate as a dance of ritual courtship and protosexual expression of a civilization jealous of its roots.
Before and after, little else. It closes with the anthem to freedom in "Libero Liberi Libera", but something clearly doesn’t convince. Live, they remain incredibly full of energy; Cesko is a stage animal with few equals, but something in the group's magic breaks when this work does not achieve the results of the previous one: the trumpeter Ferro leaves a few months after the tour's start and is not replaced, with the live horns to be managed (pre-recorded) from the console of DJ Cordella.
The new work is expected to be released on May 26th... the patchanka continues....!
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