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Rating: "No Hope, No Fear" was released in 1989, when the Italian hardcore scene was heading towards its twilight. The first signs of this inevitable decline had been seen in the previous years, when the main stronghold of Italian punk, the Virus social center, had been suppressed. The big names (Indigesti and Wretched above all) had gradually ceased their activity, and the strong sense of precariousness that had characterized the era of large occupations was disappearing. Hardcore music was, for better or worse, the spokesperson for the discomfort of those who did not want to conform to the cultural greyness of society and who, through music, clothing, and much more, wanted to create their own style. In 1989, when the fire of innovation and rebellion was extinguished and absorbed by the system (or by time) and the "youth" whose motto was "Live Fast, Die Young" were becoming "Too Old To Die Young", the dying punk counterculture was sowing its legacy in the metropolitan underground, waiting for the day a new tremor would shake the guts of society, rigid and excessively self-satisfied. But we finally come to the record, a composition that holds its own against the more renowned names of the genre, the swan song of a certain way of understanding punk music.
The Neapolitans Contropotere, the main occupiers of the Tien'a'Ment social center, released this "No Hope, No Fear" at Attack Punk Records of Jumpy Velena (Raf Punk), a label that followed the model of the famous Crass Records. It has not been reprinted.
Blessed with good production (we are far from the excruciating bone-crushing recordings that characterized Wretched), it features unusually long tracks (7 minutes on average!!). This peculiar aspect suggests how the term "Hardcore" is reductive in relation to this album, open to the most varied influences.
By dipping your hand into this boiling musical cauldron, you can find dark drums with an obsessive cadence, abrasive guitars creating thin arabesques, oriental melodies and echoes, operetta pianos, and Mediterranean suggestions. Of course, the distinct punk vein often emerges and creates chaos where once reigned a dark and disturbing peace, bringing to a different level with cutting riffs the sophisticated atmosphere that had formed. The lyrics, desperate and poetic, are declaimed by Lucia's sharp voice, which, in my opinion, could eat the current Brody Dalle & Co. for breakfast. Citing one track would humiliate the others, so I can only recommend listening to the album in its entirety. Let yourself be lulled, let yourself be carried away, and let yourself be disturbed. Under the notes of "No Hope..." the melancholic and angry part of your being will finally vent its fears, giving you the feeling of being capable of anything.
If you are looking for industrial atmospheres combined with verbose Punk anger, take this and consume it. A Hardcore album even for refined palates. You don't need to cross the ocean to find great albums.
PS: sorry but I couldn't find the cover
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