Cristina Donà
Torno a casa a piedi

"I believe in the miracles that people can do".

With this positive and hopeful phrase, the latest album of Cristina Donà begins. Particularly in this period when Italy is, due to its political class, in a state of emergency, Cristina Donà seems to want to remind us that we can still hope for miracles and love. It is since "La quinta stagione" that the singer-songwriter has abandoned the harsher and darker sounds to make room for softer sounds and to experiment with new paths, and we find this characteristic also in "Torno a casa a piedi". This is an album in which two musical trends can be observed: cheerful pieces, infused with positivity and energetic lyrics ("Miracoli", "In un soffio", "Aquilone", "Giapponese") and great ballads, whose main theme is love ("Un esercito di alberi", "Torno a casa a piedi", "Più forte del fuoco"). The album works marvelously, and Cristina manages, with her innate talent and the mastery acquired over years of career, to find a balance that makes the album enjoyable from start to finish.

It is difficult to find weak pieces; all the songs make sense, all the sounds are well calibrated, and the lyrics tackle different themes in a deep and never trivial way. According to the taste and opinion of this writer, "In un soffio" (an atypical piece for Donà, using many of the canons of the great tradition of Italian songwriting, with its cheerful and carefree rhythm), "Più forte del fuoco" (a reflective song about love and its greatness capable of overcoming everything and everyone), and "Torno a casa a piedi" (another ballad in which a difficult story is described, which very likely will not survive the banality of the daily routine).

In short, this is an album where Donà reaches peaks of class and depth never reached before. The singer herself explained that this record was born from the need to abandon the frenetic rhythms of today's life (well represented by the rhythm of the whimsical "Giapponese [the art of making ends meet]") to return to leading a life that still makes sense. And it is precisely albums like this that make us understand how much music can still make sense even in the times of iTunes and artists manufactured in talent shows.

Note from the reviewer: absolutely thrilled to have posted, after years spent browsing this site from top to bottom, my first review.