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Rating: The live verification of Baustelle's latest album happens for two different reasons: the aspect concerning the lyrics is simply the result of the months-long decanting, while the one related to the arrangements is particularly significant because it simultaneously enhances the conviction of the excellent work done and confirms some limitations of the "band" live, even if accompanied by a plethora of musicians.
The music of the latest album, skillfully streamlined in the studio, demonstrates all its richness and depth in concert. The listening becomes, so to speak, three-dimensional compared to the 2D of the record. Rhythms, bass, synthesizers, pianos, guitars, tambourines, mellotron, samplers, and so on. The arsenal is decidedly vast, and the execution is accurate. However, perhaps precisely due to the rich complexity of the arrangements, perhaps due to the excessive number of musicians on stage, imagining not all virtuosos of their instruments, or perhaps due to a certain meticulousness in the exact reproduction of all the sounds, well, some tracks end up being too heavy and slow, like pachyderms that cannot move more swiftly. Therefore, the goodness of the songs is now undeniable, but overall, the more layered pieces come out a bit burdened.
The execution of the entire album begins a bit weighed down with "Il Vangelo di Giovanni," one of the most musically intricate moments; it proceeds with neither disgrace nor praise for a couple of tracks and instead has an unexpected beautiful redemption with "Eurofestival": among the least interesting in terms of content, it showcases a compelling guitar and a remarkable final solo. The album version is decidedly more tamed. Among the best moments, the diptych "Lepidoptera" – "La vita," with Bianconi in absolute form. It's a shame about a small void in the arrangement of the first one. I remembered Bianconi's singing as significantly less convincing, but I saw them in 2010 at Carroponte; the choice of theaters seems to succeed in calming the background noise, highlighting the arrangements and voices better. Even Rachele's voice seems fuller than seven years ago.
Towards the end of the album, the arrangements become less bloated, and the performances become more agile and enjoyable. Indeed excellent is the closure with "Ragazzina," preceded by Bianconi's words: "Two things you should never do: songs for your children and Christmas songs. This is both."
As for the lyrics, the concert evening gave me the opportunity to further convince myself of the excellent work done in this regard. Setting aside some superficial flaws that fade away after a short time, the macrotextual dimension of the album emerges with listens. The individual texts, although apparently unconnected, form an organic picture that is greater than the sum of its parts, like Caproni's works, to cite a poet I know quite well. Therefore, the message of L’amore e la violenza is in no single song; it is in the overall picture. It opens with war and migrations; there's talk of pessimism and ended, short loves, loves as dependencies; there's anorexia, dreams as premonitions of death, putrefaction. Then restart: being happy is not easy but possible, we must return to when "we served Mass"; I don't want to hurt you anymore, I'm attached to life; life is tragic but fantastic, being useless; and anyway, one gets used to everything, even bombs. Ending: in this world full of monsters, a father's thought goes to his daughter, more fragile than him: even if the world harms her, she continues to embrace it. Attachment to life, despite the monsters. And then there's only one thing left to do: a boundless prayer: "Descend from the stars, descend king of the sky, come into this cold cave, come into this cold cave and frost, between baby Jesus and the bogeyman." Between love and violence.
The second part of the concert only reinforces the impressions on the arrangements of the latest work. Compared, the older tracks seem too simple, too anthemic, at times too cryptic in the lyrics. However, the execution is solid: I particularly appreciated some melodic variations in "Charlie fa surf" and the choice to perform "Bruci la città": sung by Bianconi, it assumes a new decadent beauty more suitable to the text. The unreleased "Veronica n. 2" also seems very valid, although we didn't quite catch all the words. Finally, great enthusiasm, both from the band and the otherwise restrained audience, for "La guerra è finita" and "La canzone del riformatorio." Truly, compared to the recent synth refinements, they seemed like overflowing rock pieces, also thanks to the guitars in the foreground.
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