Hobophobic
I Sogni A Naufragare

Italian hardcore also (and especially) passes through Hobophobic. The group from Taranto has revealed itself over the years as the embodiment of the purest and most uncompromising way to express oneself through hardcore, using it as a tool to voice their scream to a State, to a society that scourges everyone with an insurmountable and incurable sense of unease. It is not youthful unease, it is human existentialism, of the modern man.

"Vite Rinchiuse" makes explicit what everyone wants to forget, the idea of rotting in a cage that is life itself, hidden in the shadow of "quiet living" but built of "always the same days." Indifference, hypocrisy. A State, an economy, a conformism, an entire system that enslaves to consumerism and a fake life. Hobophobic's lyrics have always been politically engaged, soaked with anger and discomfort, direct and explicit. And the music is no different: a lightning-fast hardcore disentangling through breaks and tempo changes that seem to have created themselves, so great is the harmony that forms between their notes and their lyrics. And then so much melody, but above all so much pathos. I refrain from commenting on the issues that led to the composition of the album, tied to some temporary detention centers in Lecce. Simply because I do not intend to make politics, everyone seeks the information they desire, here we wish to speak of something else, of the pure artistic talent of the Tarantino combo, detached from any other implication. Hobophobic's songs have the innate ability to send chills down the spine for the genuineness and the expressive force they are built with, where lyrics, melody, and violence are all one to break through the listener's emotions.

This is even more true in this album, the band's second, where the purely musical part is given the utmost prominence. "Noi non ne possiamo più di questi grandi sfruttatori, grandi aguzzini e di tutti i loro servi.." and the title track flows angry and pulsating like a raging river "Basta, basta, basta, ora basta!" until the desperate shout "I sogni a naufragare!" and emotional destruction is complete. Riffs that could set a standard in the much-acclaimed USA while they come from the Ionian Sea, passion and melody pouring out, and the delirium becomes sublime when every word manages to hit the heart "Remare contro tutti, il tempo che corre come un treno impazzito... e non c'è da fermarsi!". Impossible to keep up with such class and elegance, as much as the anger and the desire to change things, all distinctive features of the group. The sadness of tracks like "I Sogni a Naufragare", "Fino a che punto", "Lacrime Amare", "Volti" are not easy to describe in words if not lived on one's own skin. Everything that a hardcore record must be passes through here. Anger, resentment, sadness, pain, violence, emotion, genuineness, discomfort, passion... poetry.

"I Sogni A Naufragare" is probably one of those indispensable albums (or at least, truly worthy of consideration) for the hardcore scene of Taranto, Apulia, Italy, Europe, worldwide, everything. Hobophobic remains a band to support, I believe, beyond any ideology, political belief and I would also say musical taste, simply because they really love what they do, at the cost of sacrificing (funds for CDs and live shows did not go into their pockets, but used for the solidarity of the "Leccese comrades"), they love the people they do it for and above all they do it damn well.
"...And there is no stopping!!!"