Calcutta
Evergreen

LA RECENSIONE

After the unexpected success of "Mainstream," Edoardo D'Erme decided to withdraw from the scene for a short period: few media appearances, a few interviews, limited live performances, often solo with guitar and voice, much like before the spotlight surprisingly turned on him. A necessary break for reflection to recharge and decide how to continue the path taken. Born from a context of anonymity now dissolved, the album is intended to represent artistic maturity, the manifesto record to be remembered in the years to come, an evergreen so to speak, in sharp contrast to the intentionally crowd-pleasing "Mainstream." Unfortunately, this is not the case.

A note of merit should still be given to the singer-songwriter, often criticized for his technical ineptitude elevated to an aesthetic trait: the arrangements are noticeably more refined. An "amarcord" of 60s pop-rock envelops the whole album, occasionally allowing for small psychedelic detours. But under an almost manneristic surface hides very little: in this case, what’s missing is the substance, that writing that became the artist's stylistic hallmark, where small phrases seemingly placed at random managed to elevate themselves to a generational anthem and to represent with a few images, often poor and modest, all the uncertainty and precariousness of common feelings.

Attempts are made here and there with good results in "Briciole" or "Hübner." The former, almost an outtake of "Il cielo in una stanza" revisited in a lo-fi way, presents one of the few intimate and truly convincing lyrics of the batch (“but your words blow the crumbs/ toward an archipelago, they become islands”). The latter, which seems to be a leftover from the previous album, is appreciable for its thin, rarefied, nebulous arrangement that gives minimal and simple phrases a rather interesting mood. The first half of the album manages to be consistent, unfortunately with less happy results, with these two tracks, except for the overly cremoniniana "Kiwi" and the electronic interlude "Dateo," which neither adds nor detracts from the album.

The problems are instead clear and unavoidable in the last three tracks, where the singer-songwriter abandons his intimate approach to adopt a self-ironic and playful mask with unbelievable results, at times embarrassing; if the rock-influenced "Nuda nudissima," with its guitars saturated with flanger, can pass off as pure divertissement, "Rai" and "Orgasmo" do not convince due to the often childish and immature writing, writing that would have led a more critical ear to discard them without hesitation. The maturity album thus reveals itself as a transition album with few ideas, often vague, and still a long way to go to be truly convincing artistically.