Castadiva
Dalla Parte di Schwa

THE REVIEW

If you find yourself around Milan, you might eventually stumble into a venue and be captivated by the sophisticated and magnetic dark rock of Castadiva. It’s a slow and subtle capture, 'discreet,' one might say…

Discretion. The debut album of the quintet invokes it in the title ('schwa' is the English phoneme indicating the scarcely pronounced, discreet sound of “e” in “the”, for example) and evokes it in the 10 tracks, thanks to a dark and fascinating progression, discreet but never flat or banal.

Some cite the old CCCP to describe their style and the singing of Paolo ‘Larsen’ Mosca, the group’s leader-vocalist-bassist. But in reality, none of the five members have ever listened to CCCP. Mauro Ravasio, “recognizable in the blade of the Major Arcana’s Emperor” (as the website states), embellishes the music with the notes of his Diavoletto, and here, indeed, the influence of Robert Smith (Cure) and Grasshopper (Mercury Rev) is felt and appreciated.

The musical blend intrigues with the originality of their lunar sounds and the texts between poetic, erudite, and surreal… Do you remember your idleness wide open on me / as if it were venial to mirror oneself in one's silence / and the cautious words of the street / like stupid goodbyes born by chance.

An album to listen to drunk and tired on a spaceship with an Eighties design.

genre: Dark Rock