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Rating: I am fully aware that there are already 5 other reviews of this album on Debaser, but, as stated on the site, it is appropriate to write more with the same "object of study" provided that one has something else, something new and different to say about the subject. I think this is my case.
"Amen" is the fourth album by Baustelle, the second produced by Warner, and both musically and qualitatively, it represents a step backward for them. The signing with the major label hasn't benefited the Tuscan band, not due to alleged pressures from the label but simply because, during production, the larger budget available to the group undermined their sense of moderation. The results of the past were much better when a "lo-fi" compelled by limited means contained these ambitions, which turned out to be detrimental. The desire to explore, the frantic search for refined solutions, led to debatable arrangements, needless subtleties, and an excessive length of the tracks, making the pieces dragging wearily without ever taking off, dull and irritating. Exemplary in this sense are "L", "Ethiopia" and especially "Baudelaire", where, in a nonsense both verbal and musical, underground club suggestions and South American rhythms mix in sonic excursions worthy of the worst Subsonica. Not coincidentally, the happiest moments ("Colombo", "Charlie fa surf") are those enhanced by sparser and essential arrangements.
What positively strikes are the two-voice harmonies: when Bianconi's singing is joined by Bastreghi's seductive one, the result is salvific for many tracks. This is the case of "Antropophagus" which, initially even unbearable, redeems itself when the two voices take flight. Even the lyrics aren't convincing, weighed down by the ambition to be forcibly intellectual, and they are certainly not saved by sterile references to cult objects, whether religious (Catholicism) or secular (drugs, Baudelaire, Cassavetes, Pasolini).
In conclusion, the feeling is one of a missed opportunity, of good potential but poorly expressed and, at times, empty and irritating. The mountain has given birth to the classic mouse.
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Other reviews
By Andrea_Brindisi
If I said this album is a masterpiece it would be an exercise in style as if I criticized it.
These songs cannot be reviewed. They can only be recommended, gently, to be inhabited.
By tom traubert
Is it still possible in 2008, in this Italy, to take everyday reality, turn it into poetry, and put it all into a pop/folk song?
This album is here to say yes.
By joseleaci
Here are the Baustelle, here is the talent that makes its way in spite of our envy and our amazement.
It works and I, who have long awaited someone to artistically amaze me as the three can do, adopt them, follow them, choose them, want them, applaud them, and buy them.
By Antropophagus
"Amen: a simple word that indicates a liturgical closure, a term that encompasses a thousand and one meanings."
"With 'Amen' we might all be able to understand at least a sixteenth of our current life and direct our hearts and souls in a single way out... A M E N."
By Frana77
"Amen," their fourth work, possibly travels on an even higher level, bordering (allow me to say) on perfection.
"Amen" is a heavily played record, using not only the canonical instruments but especially many strings and a brass section, making it symphonic, almost like a cinematic soundtrack.
