Stoney

"Giving voice to the despair of its mad protagonist, Luxun echoes the common cry that all the young intellectuals of the time would have wanted to raise in unison, whose new ideas, whose hopes, were frustrated by the apathy, resignation, and obtuseness of the ruling classes and society itself." Uhm. Exactly what is happening today in Italy and Europe. Interesting.

Review summary: "Usually Opeth=distortion=metal=pogo, cool! But this time no, why? Ah, it’s all good, it’s strange stuff, acoustic, dark, so there’s a good reason they’re not making a ruckus like usual. Damn, they’re even good at playing, oh! What geniuses!" My utterly UNobjective opinion: an album that shouldn’t even be reviewed for how it can penetrate deeply into each person in different and personal ways. Perhaps the most evocative album I’ve ever listened to. I put it on when nostalgia for the past hits me, and every time it’s a journey into memories. I have a particular fondness for this band.

Unfortunately, my judgment is inflated by the fact that I happen to know a lot of people who are part of the Roman emo scene. Spoiled rich kids filled with money who use music as an excuse to appear cultured with exquisite taste, who pose as artists dabbling in being entrepreneurs of themselves, people who write silly songs in their spare time and then spend tens of thousands of euros to self-produce a record to flaunt in front of their friends. And of course, some even find success. Money attracts money; it’s just basic business law. Music here has nothing to do with it.

Federico, the point is that you can like Dream Theater, but if you compare them to King Crimson, it makes me think you're only comparing your emotions and not the music itself. Plus, the fact that 90% of the people here viscerally hate Dream Theater is a given. I'm one of them.

"Fripp gives us a haunting solo, lasting three minutes, which leads into the most beautiful ending music has ever gifted us (second only to the one in 'Learning To Live' by Dream Theater)." There you go, I knew it. And how wrong are you? Predictable like a feature on the veline at Studio Aperto.

"so many misunderstood geniuses in today's musical landscape, on par with the likes of Daniel Gildenlow, Roine Stolt, Neal Morse." Huh? Daniel Gildenlow?!

"Average age: 15. Yet, even if you don't know them, they still make infectious music, you'll want to move a little, right?" and "The parents of some audience members made me feel sorry for them." Two gems that I would have never thought I’d find in a review, especially when its purpose is to praise a band and not to tear it apart in four words. But Debaser is also this. Genius.

@Genoo, that's exactly how it is... @Iside, I don't think taking to the streets is the right choice. They would just find a way to label you as an anarchist-communist-anti-Christian- bourgeois-daddy's boy-enemy of institutions. Today, going to the streets only serves to scandalize the bourgeois, not to scare the politicians, who continue unabated on their path. You say: there are never young people under 45 at protests. And I believe you! When young people try to organize a demonstration, there's not a single jerk who cares to understand WHY. On the news and in newspapers, there’s never any discussion about why students and young workers take to the streets; the focus is always and only on the usual excuses to delegitimize them, which there are plenty: they’re young, they’re stupid, they just make noise, they’re idealistic dreamers, they don’t want to work, they’re spoiled, they do drugs, they drink too much. Then they say that young people can't find a path in life, that they’re a generation of lazy good-for-nothings. First, they strip any legitimacy from their thoughts, then they find all the valid reasons to put obstacles in their way (at work, they tell you "you’re young, what do you expect?"), and then they complain that they achieve nothing, that they’re lazy. Schizophrenia? It sure seems that way, or maybe it’s just pathetic opportunism. The real battle today is not in the streets. I've seen and still see a lot of young people bowing their heads and accepting undignified conditions, reducing themselves to mere foot rags in a job that offers them no prospects for a career or independent life, in exchange for a fixed-term contract (if they’re lucky; otherwise, there are the "collaboration" ones, of course, because you "collaborate," right?) with which they scrape together not even 1000 euros a month. What sense does it make to go smash windows in the square, ignored by the rest of the world and the attention of the media (and the politicians, the entrepreneurs, all the people to whom the message would actually be directed) when the next day you go back to work and just bend over again?

@Genoo, that's exactly how it is... @Iside, I don't think taking to the streets is the right choice. They would just find a way to label you as an anarchist-communist-anti-Christian- bourgeois-daddy's boy-enemy of institutions. Today, going to the streets only serves to scandalize the bourgeois, not to scare the politicians, who continue unabated on their path. You say: there are never young people under 45 at protests. And I believe you! When young people try to organize a demonstration, there's not a single jerk who cares to understand WHY. On the news and in newspapers, there’s never any discussion about why students and young workers take to the streets; the focus is always and only on the usual excuses to delegitimize them, which there are plenty: they’re young, they’re stupid, they just make noise, they’re idealistic dreamers, they don’t want to work, they’re spoiled, they do drugs, they drink too much. Then they say that young people can't find a path in life, that they’re a generation of lazy good-for-nothings. First, they strip any legitimacy from their thoughts, then they find all the valid reasons to put obstacles in their way (at work, they tell you "you’re young, what do you expect?"), and then they complain that they achieve nothing, that they’re lazy. Schizophrenia? It sure seems that way, or maybe it’s just pathetic opportunism. The real battle today is not in the streets. I've seen and still see a lot of young people bowing their heads and accepting undignified conditions, reducing themselves to mere foot rags in a job that offers them no prospects for a career or independent life, in exchange for a fixed-term contract (if they’re lucky; otherwise, there are the "collaboration" ones, of course, because you "collaborate," right?) with which they scrape together not even 1000 euros a month. What sense does it make to go smash windows in the square, ignored by the rest of the world and the attention of the media (and the politicians, the entrepreneurs, all the people to whom the message would actually be directed) when the next day you go back to work and just bend over again?

H.B., do you realize what you're talking about? You are risking electoral outcomes that, although true, have been pointless. The only thing the left should have done once in power for the first time, after the first Berlusconi government, was to pass a law that would have prevented such an individual from running again, because ALL left-wing voters (and many from the right as well) knew very well what was coming. It was evident to everyone what the role of that new party, created overnight against "the communists," was, which had achieved inconceivable electoral success just a few months after its inception. This was not done, and that is enough for me to imagine what might have been behind it: hidden powers, organized crime, secret services, foreign nations still commanding at home, Masonic legacies, and more. You said it yourself a few posts ago: we are the country that killed Moro when he attempted a shift to the left, we are a nation that used a judicial scandal to "cut off the head" of the old powers without succeeding, we are the laughingstock of a country that has had the same ruling class in power since the Republic was declared. So, what’s the point? Probably, a change of government now would plunge the country into chaos. You see, I am not a "communist," not least because when the Berlin Wall fell, I was too young to understand what was happening or to vote. My parents, however, were, and you know what I realize when I talk to them (who now vote PD)? They vote out of habit. They mark the cross where once there was the sickle and hammer, and although they parrot the mantras they were accustomed to (the issues of workers, jobs, deceitful businessmen, along with the usual "Berlusconi the thief," etc.), deep down they have transformed into very ordinary bourgeois, just like everyone else. First, they "fought" by embracing an ideological cause they felt was theirs (and they could do this in an era when the distance between citizens and institutions was much smaller than today), then they flattened themselves into a life consisting of a stable job, a mortgage to pay, and a family car, and today they have absolutely no idea what the world in front of them is like, they don’t understand it, nor do they know what it means for us young people to face it, find a job, live a decent life. That’s what the PD is, that’s who it represents: remnants of an old, stale ideology, of "well, guys, we tried," which is the bourgeois and respectable reinterpretation of what were once reactionary and revolutionary ideals, which today would sound wrong in the upscale salons where votes and favors are bought, as they would be too "inconvenient" because they wouldn’t fit with the new economic and social "diktats." No political force is currently representative of the country that truly desires a change. There is an entire demographic of people aged 20 to 30 that has been completely left to fend for itself, has no future, and above all lacks representation. These are serious reasons for not going to vote, because I will not vote for those who do not represent me. This is the principle on which democracy is based; I know of no other. Regards.