Irene Grandi
Alle Porte del Sogno

Irene Grandi is one of the question marks in our Italian music: she is continually suspended between commercial pop rock and more introspective songs. Beautiful voice, but so far none of her albums have convinced me. Will this be an exception? Partially, yes.

Irene tries, through her sentimental disappointments and her subsequent sentimental and artistic rebirth (she hadn't made an album of new material in 5 years) to create a more convincing and refined album. To some extent, she succeeded: she set aside the guitars and made extensive use of synthesizers (here is the significant influence of producer Pio Stefanini) and she partially changed her singing style (almost spoken in the songs "strada sterrata" and "l'amore che viene e che va"). On the other hand, it's a work devoid of particular peaks, and a couple of songs turn out to be somewhat poor ("tutti più felici" and "mi manca" where everything seems a bit forced and stale). There is no shortage of prestigious collaborations: "la cometa di halley" written by Bianconi and "stai ferma" by Getano Curreri are both beautiful songs (although in the first one, the influence of the singer of Baustelle is overly pronounced). The single "alle porte del sogno" is also nice, but in my opinion, the best song is "greensburg": great lyrics and a nice pop tune with an acoustic guitar supporting Irene's strong vocal performance.

To these, add the ballads "onde nere" and "intendevi", the two most distinctive tracks of the album (the aforementioned "strada sterrata" and "l'amore che viene e che va") and the rockiest track of the album "ma". The result is a more mature and refined album than the previous ones, but it still carries a cloud of commercial pop rock that obscures several songs. It’s a half-turn compared to the past, but another half-turn is needed to write the words "mature artist" next to Irene Grandi's name.