Carmen Consoli
Eva Contro Eva

THE REVIEW

A soul from purgatory lamenting and mumbling words turned into music: that was my preconceived notion of Carmen Consoli. Until I was advised to listen to the song “Signor Tentenna” and, as is my habit, I preferred to listen to the entire album “Eva contro Eva” (what a beautiful title).

At first listen, it was love at first sight. From the Carmen I learned to know, the one who used to release rock albums, like the beautiful “Mediamente isterica”, to this new Carmen, there is a gulf of growth. In this new and beautiful album, she seems “stripped of all falsity”, she seems to have shed what was increasingly becoming a mask over time: the rock singer, the Mediterranean punkette, as she was also called.
With that mask removed, a new Carmen was born, a mature singer-songwriter, a Cantantessa who never forgets her origins, a Cantantessa who has nothing left but to sing because she has understood that her song is “rain upon the wet, a sandcastle that will leave neither infamy nor praise, a fight against windmills,” as she rightly states in “Mulini a vento,” a beautiful track from “L’eccezione.” Therefore, we find music that does not want to criticize, propose, or deceive, but to narrate not only the evils of society but, as the author herself states, also “the victims of our society.”

And she does so in ten little pearls, excellently written as usual (the wordplay and the use of their musicality are admirable) and woven with an interesting intellectualism, but, above all, beautifully arranged with a Mediterranean musicality, warm and enveloping (one should recall the use of instruments from ancient Sicilian tradition), yet at the same time suffused with melancholy.

Unique voice, superb lyrics, versatile musicality: emotion! Undoubtedly one of the most fascinating artists of today's Italian scene, and beyond…