Eugenio Finardi
Blitz

It's surprising that, while browsing online, one finds so little information, but above all (amazingly), no critical analysis of the fourth album by Eugenio Finardi, Blitz, released by Cramps in 1978 and performed by Crisalide. Yet, we are talking about the album that contains the famous Extraterrestre, a science fiction parable about the selfish attempt to create a better existential condition, an individualistic arrogance that eventually leads to repentance and awareness of one's own solitude, resulting from actions taken with such impulsiveness. And from the "unknown planet" where the protagonist learns the sad moral of his tale, from that unspecified point in space where he has been exiled, at his request, by the same superhuman entities that seem to have destined him for a disastrous exile, suddenly returns to Earth, inside a domestic home, where the listener infiltrates the conjugal intimacy of the protagonists of Come un Animale, a delicate piano ballad with lyrics that alternate sweetness with almost glam ways: "it is just that tonight I only want/ to make love like an animal/ I want to make love until it hurts/ I want to make love..."

At this point, we head outside, we arrive on the street, or rather, in the city, as the lively notes of Drop Out Rock, a track in English that the legendary "Mr. G" would have identified as "metropolitan rock’n’roll", burst in. And from this combination of skyscrapers, buildings, bridges and suspended subways, giant screens peeking from mighty edifices, rows of lights lining wide multi-lane roads; from all this explosive bustle... a solitary canal, a bench nestled behind a pedestrian path. The listener sits and takes a breath as the gentle percussions of Affetto, ready to show us its introspective sequence between complacency and polemic, gently bloom. From this pleasant exchange of pleasantries between pop and psychedelia, a relaxed song arrives that, in narrating pleasant situations, draws outbursts of protest tones: "I like to think and analyze/ choose a music to play with/ I take a melody, look for a harmony/ build my idea on it/ and I don't like martyrs nor prophets/ clever people and priests get on my nerves/ all people afraid of acting and who dare to judge..."

From this mixture of discrepant reflections, here comes a burning cone of sunlight that blinds our gaze, leading us into another world, sketched by the usual concoction of percussions, combined with an engaging South American melody (almost reggae), to describeCuba, in the form of its great social commitment. "Maybe it is true that there is no paradise in Cuba/ that we wouldn't want to be in China/ cultivating rice/ that increasingly we find ourselves doubting/ if over the years we have done nothing but dream./ It is that we live in a moment of reflux/ and it seems that the world is collapsing/ that all that singing about changing the/ situation/ was just a dream or an illusion..."

The determined notes of the organ suddenly extinguish the sun of Latin America when an adrenaline-inducing arpeggio, escorted by the nervous stride of the bass and the majestic notes of the violin (played by Lucio Fabbri), delivers the most apt of accompaniments to introduce the next sound venture, suspended between courage and tragedy: Op. 29 in C Major, praises the lower classes, justifies their reckless actions. It talks about a young student in economic crisis, forced to improvise as a thief just because power would not grant him a job to support his studies. In the end, he will end up in prison, and the newspapers will tarnish his reputation, branding him as a destined rogue, ignoring the true reason that pushed him to such a life choice. In short, a piece that seems like the bitter portrait of an outdated prophecy destined to materialize exactly in our day, through that malicious entity called unemployment, now spread across our peninsula, and ready to suppress the lower classes by shamelessly condemning them to support themselves through delinquency (like the protagonist of the piece), although more often it punishes them with death (thinking of the desperate suicides that often appear in newspaper pages). Speaking of music, Op 29 in C Major is the piece that most praises the talents of Crisalide, especially in the three minutes of the instrumental finale: a fantastic burst of healthy progressive rock, albeit performed in a less sophisticated manner compared to the classic style of the genre, which was very popular at the time.

As the mood of bitterness and understanding slowly fades, the author seems to acquire the right mood to talk about himself. Northampton, Jan.'78 indeed opens with the line"today I met my father", proof of a lucid and aware Finardi, preparing to exhume his adolescence to understand the reasons for his difficult relationship with his father, a love chilled by the lack of dialogue that forced a son to fight alone against his "problems" (a key word perhaps referring to the problems Eugenio had with drugs, also mentioned in Scimmia, the song that closed the album Diesel in 1977). In this case, however, we are far from the tragedy of that text and the melodic rock that animated it: a gentle symphonic arrangement entrusted solely to keyboards, recreating a melancholic and intimate atmosphere, on which the author finds time for self-analysis that will lead him not to commiserate his past and live adulthood with greater confidence. It is a song of only two minutes: one hundred and twenty seconds of spontaneous maturity and deep simplicity, before Mauro Spina pounds at his drums to introduce a bass run by Stefano Cerri, while the rhythmic section inaugurates the last rock of the album, of which only the line "blitzkrieg on false illusions/ to those who break the balls" is necessary to recognize a decisive shift towards a combative text, set into the piece through a more rough and determined vocal interpretation. And when Crisalide prepare to close the album with the last energetic instrumental, the listener stands up from the bench and moves towards the exit of that wise metropolis the author has constructed for him; he proceeds towards the real world, which unfortunately remains not much different from the dimension experienced in this melancholic, angry, frustrated, and fascinating sound journey.

With this convincing Blitz, Finardi initiatesa slow stylistic transformation from rock to pop, which will continue with the equally effective Roccando rollando, and then with Finardi, an album still aggressive but adorned with those pompous samplings that will then steer the nocturnal and refined Dal Blu, an album almost entirely reliant on electronic music.

Songs:

1. Extraterrestre

2. Come un animale

3. Drop Out Rock

4. Affetto

5. Cuba

6. Op. 29 in C Major

7. Northampton, Jan. '78

8. Blitzkrieg

Musicians:

Eugenio Finardi: Vocals

Lucio Fabbri: Violin

Brass Arrangements: Claudio Pascoli

String Arrangements: Claudio Fabi

Crisalide:

Stefano Cerri: bass

Ernesto Vitolo: electric piano, Fender piano, organ

Mauro Spina: drums

Luciano Ninzatti: guitars

Mauro Preti: percussions