CCCP - Fedeli Alla Linea
Affinità-Divergenze Fra Il Compagno Togliatti E Noi

THE REVIEW

The Cccp - Fedeli alla Linea, along with Litfiba and Diaframma, can be considered one of the best Italian rock bands of the '80s. Heirs of punk and the Emilian communist culture, the band represents everything in Italian rock that refuses to conform and be strangled by preconceptions, and they will leave a mark for their desire to scream in the face of everyone what was previously told with well-constructed metaphors.

The group was formed in '82 from the meeting between singer Giovanni Lindo Ferretti and guitarist Massimo Zamboni. After a handful of EPs collected in the raw "Compagni Cittadini Fratelli Partigiani," the group recorded in '86 one of the masterpieces of Italian rock, with the extensive title "1964 - 1985
Affinità - Divergenze fra il compagno Togliatti e noi. Del conseguimento della maggiore età." The title was meant to be a political manifesto: the phrase echoed the title of the document drafted by the Chinese in the '60s ("On the differences between the comrade Togliatti and us") that decreed the birth of the far left across Europe, adding the "affinities" that the two felt with the Italian communist tradition. Not forgetting that the subtitle specified: "Del conseguimento della maggiore età." It was a detachment from the politics as it had been until then: Giovanni and Massimo thought that the only possible message was "no future," there is no future if the world continued to go on that way.

Musically, the group is influenced by very disparate influences: the German electro-industrial scene, punk, and Italian songwriting. An obsessive bass line opens the band's identity manifesto: "Cccp". Immediately after, you find yourself in the middle of violent guitar feedback and a frenzied electronic drum, as Ferretti proclaims: "Fedeli alla linea, even when there isn't one, When the emperor is sick when he dies or is doubtful or perplexed, Fedeli alla linea the line is not there." It is followed by the more canonical "Curami", opened by a rough guitar riff and a disorienting xylophone, in which the singer exclaims infinitely at a frantic speed "I am a therapy". Taken from the previous album, and remixed, is the ironic/erotic "Mi Ami?" ("A sad erection for an annoying copulation/ Indifferent sperms for indigestible ingests"). After 3 lively tracks, comes "Trafitto", in which there is a continuous alternation of acoustic and electric guitars, and thematically anticipates what will be resumed in the second part of the album presenting a politicized and depressed text at the same time ("I am pierced/ Pierced by the future/ I seek a person/Fragile desires sometimes essential, sometimes not"). It is followed by the less than a minute of "Valium Tavor Serenase" in which the hardcore rush of the beginning and end alternates for a few moments with a typical Emilian dance hall rhythm.

"Morire" is a half acoustic track, and dominated by the searing guitar sounds in the second part, in which Ferretti mocks the consumer society of the '80s with the slogan "Produce Consume Die". The dark and depressed "Noia" opposes one of the group's most famous tracks, "Io Sto Bene", with an almost danceable rhythm, that describes the young people of his generation in a caustic manner, without will and ideas "I feel good I feel bad I don't know what to do/I don't study I don't work I don't watch TV/I don't go to the movies I don't do sports". It is followed by the minimal industrial tango "Allarme" once again very depressed "Everything dies the only thing that lives is you/ Everything dies only you live". It closes with what is considered the masterpiece of the group, the long (almost 8 minutes) "Emilia Paranoica", in which, from the oppressive and slow initial part, through the mid-track acceleration, to the return of the initial theme, an apathetic and depressive atmosphere dominates, in which Ferretti describes a pessimistic generational picture, full of stray and bored zombies filled with psychotropic drugs.

One of the absolute pinnacles of Italian rock.

SCORE = 9