Bluvertigo
Zero - ovvero la famosa nevicata dell' '85

Silence. Metallic, dissonant, self-destructive noises. Malcolm X. Appearances, communication. "I want to chat with you. A casual chat. [...]". Climax: part Zero.

The third and (alas, hopeful fans) final album of Bluvertigo, "Zero - ovvero la famosa nevicata dell' '85" begins. Zero, because possibilities do not exist if one stands still. The snowfall, because the production date can be confused with the expiration date. Yet, it almost seems there are connecting threads in all this: incommunicability, the cycle of things, alienation (and in the acknowledgments we have Carmelo Bene, among others, who deciphers it). The songs contradict each other, absolve one another, create a matryoshka effect, and it's never clear how small the doll actually is.

"Zero", an electronic delirium, with many layers of sounds in crescendo, something latent awakening, as well as the unacceptability of a reality that in "La crisi" (a semi-adolescent song reminiscent of U2), becomes rationalized, and in "Sono=sono", a similar synth-pop hit (the "rewriting of the classics", but in Castoldi style) it's even desecrated. "La comprensione", thus reaching the state in which one knows their own limits and seeks knowledge, performed on "Italian" pop rock, and refined. "Finché saprai spiegarti", the pleasure that gets confused with well-being, but that is depowered ("I've been smoking with my mother") until it becomes mere form, a theme often recurring in Morgan ("Da A ad A"); first funky in the Bowiesque style, then freak virtuosity in the manner of Zappa.

Then we have "Sovrappensiero", in which Battiato participates, at the end of the song. Here we are in the realms of Depeche Mode-like electronics, as well as Kraftwerkian. "Forse", the step back, reality returns rarefied, definable as contrasting against the sumptuous, hypnotic and whitenoise-like soundscape in some parts. A rational idyll is found in "Autofraintendimento", with heavy synths, and then the almost industrial "Lo psicopatico", one of the most successful in my opinion, perhaps also because it seems like a sort of section of "Zero", returning the delirium and the impossibility of being univocal, which "justify" a cover torn from Bowie, and almost discarded from a little package (much more classic rock the original version, but not less beautiful for this), the interludes "Saxs interlude" and the hammering and destructive funk of "Porno Muzik". "Niente x scontato", the only huge flaw of the album. "Numero", a (almost ironically to say) summing up, a desperate search for normality, for the right, with violins reminiscent of those in Psycho, almost unsettling. It closes with "Punto di non arrivo", which seems to give the album an open and perhaps irresolvable ending, with the sweet guitars in the chorus, the somewhat anxiety-inducing sounds that resemble phones, and Battiato.

An album that feels the influence of the unattainable, which always seems present in Morgan, for example in "Acidi e basi" as well as in "Da A ad A", there's something profoundly chaotic that one tries to limit, only to then explode. But compared to the others, "Zero", the finale of the chemical trilogy, seems to me musically and conceptually the most rational, considering the work the artist does. Enjoy your listening.