Francesco De Gregori
Per brevità chiamato artista

De Gregori returns and does it in grand style with a memorable album that deviates from the last two, at least musically. It almost feels like a return to the beloved country-folk rhythms typical of the '70s, although there are occasional rock bursts here and there and unusual blues influences.

Destined likely to enter the pantheon of the Prince's most beautiful songs ever, "Per brevità chiamato artista" narrates the tribulations of an artist with a dual face and double meanings, as his lyrics have often accustomed us to, "Double like a medal, if it were gold it would be cardboard", bursts of a life as a chansonnier, filled with dreamlike and suggestive images.  

"Finestre Rotte" is a rock ballad with blues touches, quite atypical for him, to be honest, with explosive metaphors that guide us through the ruin of our times, words that go straight to the heart and mind to make us reflect and meditate.
Echos of an electric guitar, probably in the hands of Paolo Giovenchi, a long-favored guitarist, introduce us to the magnificent "Celebrazione", autobiographical and catapulting us into the midst of '68 and the poignant years of lead, years of "terrorism and photography" where "the left was paralyzed, and the right was working", years from which the Prince seeks to distance himself, almost to emphasize that he had little to do with the protest "They wanted to nail me to their blind and deaf years", yet it is undeniable that during that period, he gave us some of the most beautiful pages of Italian songwriting. "Where life hit the jackpot, between a wound and a mutilation" Just a moment to recover from the enchantment created by the third track, and our artist sits at the piano to offer us a disenchanted fairy tale, narrated with a breath of magical poetry in "Volavola", and all that remains is to sit back in our chair, listen to the gentle melody filled with notes and follow the advice of the title. 
"Ogni giorno di pioggia che Dio manda in terra", is a classic, unpretentious country ballad, with the subtle return of a harmonica at the forefront as a good folk-singer, perhaps not the best of his production, yet it remains a pleasantly listenable track. Apocalyptic, visionary, and with a syncopated rhythm in "Carne umana per colazione" we are transported into the midst of the horrors of our times, as the media have accustomed us to all sorts of human depravity, and almost nothing seems scandalous anymore. "But I no longer see anyone getting angry among all the addicted of the new race", as the legendary Giorgio Gaber would have said.
The world is literally in "Pieces", and this was reminded to us some years ago, but now it seems there is no salvation from the disintegration even "throwing the key and going to Africa like Celestino". The album also has space for a cover, yet we remain within the family, as "L'angelo di Lyon" is a wonderful old song by Luigi Grechi, brother of the singer-songwriter, who had previously gifted him that magnificent masterpiece "Il bandito e il campione", a long journey from Brussels to Lyon passing through the Rhone and the Saone in a desperate search for lost loves.
But here comes the purest Degregorian hermeticism in the eighth track of the album titled "L'imperfetto", where the poet enjoys playing and poetizing with verbs in the imperfect tense, creating mystery and signs of a passing life, amid joys, pains, loves, and disamours. 
The album closes with "L'infinito" which has very little to do with the infinite and the superhuman silences of Leopardi, rather it is a gloomy, sad, anxiety-filled song accompanied by a melancholic melody that leads us towards old age and our final station: "And I saw a big hotel with the lights off and got a little scared / Behind me, the day was waning, and I felt a bit of sadness but not too much."

In short, a classic Degregorian album that will surely make old fans happy, no unforeseen change of course, no rock turn, a new little gem to be proud of, by a true artist, light-years away from market logic, and who still manages to give us moments of escape, real poetry, and dream.