Casino Royale
Dainamaita

THE REVIEW

In 1993, after 3 years of silence, Casino Royale returned with an album that would cause quite a stir, Dainamaita. What makes this album special? The complete abandonment of the danceable ska of the group's early days and a greater openness to stylistic contamination (over the years the album would be discussed as one of the very first examples of Italian "crossover"). The other great innovation is the lyrics in the language of Dante (or Manzoni, since they're from Milan).

 After an intro played on the piano notes ("De Maestro e..."), the title track explodes in all its splendor, 2 minutes and 50 seconds of pure creative genius with distorted guitars, horns, scratches (by good old DJ Gruff) and the rapped singing of Alioscia blending with Giuliano's magnificent voice. After a completely negligible interlude (5 in total), Dainabada kicks off with its drum'n'bass groove Treno per Babilon, perfect musical and vocal alchemy seasoned as always with vinyl scratches and a horn section, while in the next track, Re senza trono, there is a different atmosphere, made of Jamaican vibes, summer sun and, above all, love, just-consumed love ("I touch her body with a finger, it's morning and the dream is gone...") but also fresh melancholy ("I have a new crown and now I know what I am, yes, without a queen, a king without a throne!"), all played over synthetic reggae. Alongside these melodic gems, there are also harder episodes like -KZK-, supported by distorted guitar and Alioscia's voice that adapts well to any sound structure, and the cover of Purple haze, by the immortal Jimi Hendrix, transformed for the occasion into a danceable ska (noteworthy is the work done on the arrangement). To complete the work, 3 no less interesting tracks. In Justice, a song introduced by spoken-word, the great injustices suffered over the centuries by Native Americans up to today's monetary waste are narrated. Metallo giallo, or Justice part II: the final concepts of the previous track are indeed revisited. Money is the engine of the contemporary world, and ours is a condition of false dynamism, where changes only concern the aesthetics, not the substance. Cielo closes the album, a sort of critique of the Lombard capital "where money talks, sings, dances, and spins heads".

 Casino Royale hit the mark. After 2 albums of good ska, leaving the past behind, our group releases (in the author's opinion) their masterpiece: originality, in other words, a hybrid sound proposal, the ingredient of their success.