Ilenia Volpe
Radical Chic Un Cazzo

I find myself reviewing for the third time in a few months another album produced by the workaholic Giorgio Canali. This time it is the debut work of Ilenia Volpe, a Roman singer-songwriter who has been active in the Italian alternative rock scene for several years and whom we've heard on the Operaja Criminale album and in her collaboration with Moltheni. "Questo Radical Chic" collects the pieces Ilenia has written throughout her career and can therefore be considered a sort of greatest hits of her years of apprenticeship. This greatly influences the album, which ranges from wild "teenage" punk tracks to more intense and mature songs.

The record starts strong with "Gli incubi di un tubetto di crema arancione," a rock song that lists a sequence of things that poor Volpe no longer does and leaves us stunned by how energetic and fast-paced it is. The following "La mia professoressa di italiano" is the single that anticipated the album; it's a punk rock-flavored song in which Ilenia expresses a very crude and rather childish opinion about her teacher, as if the lyrics were written by a middle-school kid furious with the hated teacher.

The tempo slows down with the next track, "Mondo indistruttibile," where we finally hear a more mature Ilenia. The song starts slow and then explodes in an intense finale, one of the best tracks on the album. This is followed by a grunge-punk duo of great impact: "Indicazioni per il centro commerciale" and "Prendendo un caffè con Mozart." These two tracks are very similar, featuring acid guitars playing at high speed and a similarly "disturbed" vocal that seems to come directly from the late Kurt Cobain. Two excellent direct and relentless tracks, really short in duration, but which in their few minutes firmly lodge themselves in your head, refusing to leave.

The pace calms again; it's time for the cover of Il teatro degli orrori's "Direzioni diverse," excellently rearranged for the occasion and even managing to surpass the original. Capovilla's splendid lyrics are interpreted with great theatricality by Ilenia, and the gentle start, supported by a sweet guitar arpeggio, that then transforms into a thunderous electrical distortion-laden finale, enhances the beauty of this track even more.

The following "La crocifinzione" follows more or less the same course, but this time the lyrics are all Ilenia's, and it's yet another proof of maturity, which the Italian rocker lets us feel when she composes slower and more reflective tracks. However, she also demonstrates maturity when composing more energetic pieces, like the subsequent "Le nostre vergogne," a rock song that, unlike the tracks that opened the album, proves to be less childish and more studied, resembling Sandra Nasić of Guano Apes in the singing.

Then comes the unexpected instrumental piece "Il giorno della neve" written entirely by Ilenia, thus also showcasing her excellent composing skills. This melancholic piece was written by Volpe during a sad period in her life when she was beginning to consider abandoning her musical career. Needless to say, it was from this song that the singer-songwriter's rebirth began, leading her to create this album.

The album closes with the cover already present on the tribute album to Santo Niente, titled "Fiction," a song that actually turns out to be the album's weak point, and the beautiful "Preghiera," written in collaboration with Steve Dal Col, guitarist of Frigidaire Tango and Canali's Rossofuoco. A sort of prayer, in which Volpe, the author of the text, prays for an array of things that infest this world and from which the young rocker asks to be protected. This text is also written in the form of a list, just like the opening track, but differing from the initial one for its greater maturity, thus closing a sort of journey that made us follow Ilenia's artistic growth.

In conclusion, a beautiful debut album this "Radical Chic un cazzo," nothing new and revolutionary, but a very honest work that tells the story of a rebellious rocker, starting from the angry distortions of youthful punk, reaching the maturity of the last written tracks. An album that one appreciates from beginning to end, flows swiftly and leaves no one indifferent, or better yet, indifferent un cazzo!