•
Rating: “And while everything burns, there is a flower that never dies.”
Catastrophe is particularly present in the latest Baustelle album (the tenth), which, despite its bright sounds, summer tones, and Californian-vacation imagery, delivers quite a few heavy blows. To be clear, Bianconi and company have long been dealing with dystopian themes (who remembers “Il liberismo ha i giorni contati” from 2008?), but perhaps due to their advancing age or the unsettling twists of recent times, they seem closer, more relevant, almost inevitable today.
The question, therefore, is no longer whether or not we are in the throes of evil; that is the backdrop. What Bianconi questions is the next step: given that everything is going to hell, what can we do, those of us who see the abyss, who understand its scope and causes, but cannot escape it?
You would like to know the answer right away, but first, let's take a step back. Roll the credits!
“Porn is beauty when decay speeds up
Porn, the way you want it
I’ve found only one way to be happy
I know you will understand me
Being adored in this empty and atrocious world
Flesh among vultures.”
The examination of the world's ills (without too much “preaching,” however) has always been a fertile subject for Baustelle, but this time it seems to me that there is something more, a clearer and less mediated reading. This album dives without preconceptions into the flow of our era, it is imbued with words, points of view, social dynamics, politics, ecology. It is an era of great aberrations and anxieties, which we can group into some macro areas.
Environment and ecology. Perhaps the pivot of the whole catastrophic vision. The world is burning, the future is zero, programmed as such by the previous generation (“Amore tossico”), a “planet that is warming and heading towards desertification” (“La nebbia”). It's no coincidence that the cover portrays a lush landscape threatened by an almost unnatural beam of light and heat.
Social media.
“Beautiful, don't hate me
Don't film me while I stumble
In the darkness of the back seat
In the Lord’s hands
Bastard, don’t leave me
Hurt me while they talk about us
On the evening TG1
Damn spring.”
The flagship in this sense is “Una storia”, which starts from a news story, between violence and social media, leading to considerable conclusions: “In this video, there is no conclusive proof of a meaning.” It's the Gen Z generation knee-deep in TikTok reels, which gradually nullify both the possibility and capacity to build logical-rational thinking.
Social networks return in “Lanzarote” in their most frivolous and vacation-like guise.
“And are you already on vacation or do you resist
Your cliché quips?”
Beauty and pornography. I dedicated the credits to this (“Filosofia di Moana”). Closely related to social media, but not only, beauty today is almost only pornography. “The imitation of love” is that of OnlyFans and social media.
“I write useless thoughts on the phone
Then undress for low prices
I seek that vertigo that isn’t there.
There’s like a widespread therapy against pain
An obscene proliferation of emotions and heart.”
Politics. Unworthy, just a few brief mentions. “There’s the state minister who’s an idiot and propagates hate.” There are Trump and Le Pen, but they don't deserve comments.
In this Pandora’s box, it seems difficult to find a reason for hope, but above all, it seems difficult to live. It's true, yet some hypotheses emerge, albeit children of the inevitable nihilism mentioned above. It’s as if the paroxysm of the catastrophe forces somehow more sincerity and self-revelation.
“Strip me of all certainties and anesthetics
By now, I feel nothing
So strip me of tricks, cynicism, cosmetics
The picture is depressing.”
Let's at least stop pretending. Let’s save at the very least our humanity, let’s throw away toxic feelings. It’s a small consolation, but it’s not the only one.
Bianconi tries everything, ardently clinging to life as he sang seven or eight years ago. Salvation can be psychedelic and/or basely material (“Amore tossico”), it can be egomania (“Moana”), it can be the simple acknowledgment that life goes on (“Noi disperatamente ancora vivi, sì”). And again, we can rely on a sort of ataraxia and detachment from everything, even from understanding what is happening (“Sеnza più cercare di voler capire questa vita che senso ha”, “un volontario naufragare nella realtà”).
Or, more powerful than all, the union of sentiment that rewrites perceptions and the escapist retreat into oneself (“E chiudere gli occhi, perché tranne la mente non c’è nient'altro da guardare”).
Everything flows magnificently in 35 minutes of well-tested music, light but richly decorated and varied, with killer choruses and intriguing folk-rock textures on very lean structures. Perhaps the group's best outcome since the “blatantly pop” shift of 2017.
Three-minute songs, bittersweet tones, savory contrasts between lively music and sharp words. No presumptuousness, rather the credit of still wanting to explore what’s happening around, instead of entrenching themselves in self-referential poses. Lyrics that certainly represent excellence in the Italian scene.
Loading comments slowly
