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Rating: An album that evokes warmth and stays in your memory, even though it is far from perfect, but it has the freshness of all debut albums, or the classic demo that ends up sounding better than the album itself.
Daniele Castellani from Scandiano, in the province of Reggio Emilia, however, is not a newcomer and has several projects to his credit, both original music and as a cover band, but in this first work he has accomplished a small feat: he managed to be personal and, which is not a small matter, also original.
It matters little if there are still moments that are not perfectly in focus; in the initial “Oslo,” for example, one struggles a bit to understand the meaning of the lyrics, but the music is truly overwhelming, in the tradition of Italian rock singer-songwriters, from Ivan Graziani to Alberto Fortis or even the early Eugenio Finardi, and after a few listens, you find yourself singing seemingly absurd words, which is what many used to do in the pre-internet era with English or American songs, trying to decipher the lyrics.
“Canzon D'Amore Sul Lastrico” showcases a great talent of Castellani, that of composer and arranger, which manages to stand out even in a self-produced work, in which, however, there is great attention to detail and even as a guitarist, he shows impressive skills: not as a hyper-technical phenomenon, but as a creative, in service of the song.
In “Arrivederci Emilia,” one of the most touching musical moments, an intro and a verse with a reggae beat, and then a break introducing the chorus like a true master, which makes you forgive the somewhat elementary rhymes “città/pubblicità” or “mar/bar.”
Rock is a constant presence in Castellani's music, both in the guitar riffs, in the drum patterns, square but with the right dynamics, in “Fantastici Poemi” or again in the concluding “Maledetti Posters,” where Nirvana is mentioned, reminiscent of an adolescence where the posters in the room held more power than any symbol.
“Fredda è la notte” is a track with country sounds, with slide guitars, here too bars are mentioned, another word and another place that frequently recurs in the album, and finally a mention also for the instrumental “Snowland,” a minimal funk track, almost Daft Punk-like, which seems to have nothing to do with the rest of the album, but if one delves deeper into the idea and world of the singer-songwriter from Emilia, one realizes that this too fits in and that ultimately it is a photograph of his reality, of his world, with extreme freedom.
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