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Rating: Desolate Sun is a young Italian duo from the province of Belluno. Their musical inspiration is a melancholic metal rock, in the vein of the Scandinavian group Katatonia, with whom they share a particular attention to the graphic aspect of their albums.
This self-titled EP, released in 2007, marks their debut album and reveals itself of fine quality right from the cover. Since an album is always a surprise for those who are about to listen to it for the first time, we can say – if the metaphor is allowed – that we are faced with a beautifully wrapped gift. The duo’s logo is very evocative, certainly far from any standardization. It partly constitutes the key to understanding the entire EP, along with photographs of a door and a window through which a dim light filters. All these graphic components are found in the lyrics of the songs, but certainly, the cornerstone of the entire album is encapsulated in the phrase featured in the artwork: 'To our childhood memories'. This dedication brings to mind Marcel Proust's monumental work 'In Search of Lost Time', written between 1909 and 1922, because both the album and the text of the French writer are dominated by the theme of the melancholic evocation of a lost past. As in the 'Recherche', in Desolate Sun, the loss of past time begins with the erosion of childhood happiness and the loss of primordial innocence, the latter theme being revisited by the duo in their second album (Descending Stairways: 'I try to watch this with the eyes of a child but I think I’m no more clean.').
The tracks are a total of five, two of which are instrumental. They are so laden with poetry and unfold with such continuity as to suggest a sort of soundtrack for a journey in search of ancient emotions.
The album opens with an instrumental piece where the guitar arpeggio – undoubtedly the protagonist of this EP – evokes the sunrise and, at the same time, the flow of a river. 'Sun', this is the title, in its only apparent repetitiveness constitutes the prelude to the arrival of the protagonist at the destination. The sun is in the eyes, but from the following tracks, we will gather that it is not in the soul.
In the next piece – 'Dug by Time' – indeed the arrival at a house eroded by time marks the end of all illusion: 'the door to beauty is closed'.
And with the end of beauty devoured by time, all sweetness, all smiles vanish, and those who once filled that place are now only shadows walking around the protagonist. It is at the end of this track that the guitar solo becomes almost human in imitating the visitor’s hasty escape from that now dead place ('Watch this house. It’s dead.')
It is Luca's growl voice that reminds us in 'In Silence Beauty Comes' that life without beauty is cursed, but now we come to know something more, which perhaps the logo wants to suggest to us, that is, that a tragedy once struck that house, namely the death of a much-loved person occurred.
No one can restore the sun; on the contrary, the sun hides its face in suffering and black suns ('I’ll not be Here') swarm in his eyes. With a memorable phrase that is among the most poetic of the album, accompanied by guitar phrasing, he admits he will never see her face because he will not be here.
The last track is the instrumental 'Departure', and the guitar imitates the slow steps of the protagonist walking away. I like to imagine him looking one last time at that much-loved house, where the only visitor is the daylight filtering through the windows. The phrasing of the guitar has the sweetness of a smile; perhaps it is not a farewell, perhaps this suffering man will find the courage to return to this house where 'the echoes of ancient voices' still resonate.
The world of music needs artists more than mere musicians; singing and playing with the soul is what makes the difference and guides consumers in a market saturated with disposable products.
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