Il Cervello
Spirale EP

In what genre can Spirale EP be categorized? If you've asked yourself this question, the answer is only one: it's impossible to find a single genre of belonging. When I received the artist's press material, I discovered that beyond the music, there was a real underground world to discover—and partly—I think I succeeded. It's rare for an artist in a country like Italy to decide to oppose the current mass culture, something Preziosi has done, bringing into his lyrics content and subliminal messages that might not be caught on the first listen.

Let's be clear, this is certainly not the perfect album, there are only 3 sung songs + an intro and an outro but the quality is there in those 10 minutes of listening.

The analysis of the record cannot start from the intro, but rather from the cover. What seems like a "spiral" is actually a double spiral, a symbol representing the multiplicity of paths that a human being—for better and for worse—can take during life.

"Destruction is an integral part of the human creative process and an event we deem catastrophic could be the hidden door to a higher state of consciousness, to something new and better for oneself" this explanation is taken from the artist's press release. It is from destruction that something new can be born, and this is what happened with this album that tells 3 stories featuring the same character (we are not given to know, at least for now, who this character is, but in a recent interview, Preziosi declared he had embodied a new alter-ego called Daimon).

Intro is the beginning of everything, the alpha and the omega, the calm before the storm. It almost seems like one of those Moby tracks that I use at night for meditation, something like: breathe in and out, breathe in and out until you feel completely relaxed. And it is at the end of the track that everything changes: the first sung/rapped album Io sono fatto di cera begins, a song that might remind some of the title of a track by A Day to Remember but is actually a quote from Una notte al Museo and associated with actor Robin Williams.

But digging deeper, Preziosi might be referring to wax as a tool of esoteric divination.

The third song Il tuo posto nel mondo is the spiritual sequel to the first song. If in Io sono fatto di cera The Brain tells the story of a man's struggle against his inner demons after hitting rock bottom, this track is the "and what would have happened if that boy had made it?". He probably would have found his path amid a tumult of illusory roads. Note the reference to writer David Foster Wallace, author of the cult book Infinite Jest.

Storie di fantasmi is the closure of the sung songs by the artist. The singer tells two different stories both linked by the same message: absence and farewell. In the song, there is a tribute to the film El Topo by Alejandro Jodorowsky (also mentioned in the video clip of Io sono fatto di cera). Specifically, the homage to El Topo can be found in the final part of the song's lyrics: the heart, the head, change its place.

The last track is Outro, which connects perfectly with the intro: after the initial calm and subsequent storm, everything returns to the beginning. Spirale is an album that is born, grows, and dies. Among the album's flaws is certainly a somewhat repetitive structure of the tracks: intro, verse, chorus, verse, etc... but the choruses, in particular, are indelibly imprinted in the mind, especially in Io sono fatto di cera which can be defined as the driving soul of the album.

Some of the sounds of Spirale hark back to the past, particularly to Linkin Park (especially those of A Thousand Suns and Meteora), Nine Inch Nails (The Downward Spiral), The Prodigy, Ministry, Slipknot and—strange but true—to Gianna Nannini of the album Aria but with a fresh, modern touch. Also very interesting is the combination between rap and scream, Preziosi is probably one of the few singers in Italy using these two different techniques, which are so different yet fit together well.

The beats were composed by Deville.

Spirale EP is definitely a good album but if Il Cervello had aimed to have at least 5 songs sung on his record, it would have been a much more interesting product and the journey would have lasted more than a dozen minutes.

We therefore hope that Preziosi aims for a next album more substantial than this debut one and certainly does not stop at this first EP.