La crus
Crocevia

So, let me start by specifying that on this site, there was only one review of this album, dated 2003, which described it as rubbish. Since "only" 22 years have passed, I think it's time to present a different opinion.

"Crocevia" is, in my opinion, the masterpiece of LaCrus. I mean, they have gleefully waded through thefts or various citations, think of "Il vino," which paid homage to Ciampi in their first work ("La Crus," 1995). Before "Crocevia," they released their love song album ("Dietro la curva del cuore," 1999) which I adore madly, but with this work, they finally hit the mark, they no longer dance around it, they go straight to the point: the Italian songwriting, so dear to them, becomes something personal, something to be expressed in new and surprising forms. Heaven forbid that some tout court purist might be outraged, for heaven's sake, even I was perplexed on many things at the first listen, but then, listen after listen, I became convinced that Giovanardi, Malfatti, and Cremonesi worked hard during the arrangement and rewriting phase, because some things, listened to two-three times, seem better than the originals. And the originals are not exactly Dik Dik and Fausto Leali, with all due respect: here are covers of Afterhours, De André, Tenco, Gaber, CCCP; Patty Pravo, Battisti, Fossati, Nada, Conte, Bruno Martino, Morricone. All filtered in the LaCrus style.

Everyone will have their favorite, I don't have a favorite. They all are. From the serious attack of "Estate" to the (fantastic) Manuel Agnelli-La Crus-Pravo trio of the splendid "Pensiero stupendo" that increases pathos and rhythm compared to the original from 1978 (they practically re-arrange it better) and the playful trick of the Milanese group immediately surfaces: to amaze the listener with every song. It's all clear, each song might have been "stitched" with a completely different arrangement compared to the original, or not as we shall see (and this is also surprising). The Paolo Conte's "Via con me" takes on a resounding dance form, just as every patina of drama is removed from Tenco's "Un giorno dopo l'altro." Drama that is amplified in "Annarella," which is already a masterpiece of its own, but here the pain that Lindo Ferretti put in the original from 1990 is amplified a thousandfold by LaCrus, making the track even darker and more anxious.

They clean up every vocalization from Sorrenti's "Vorrei incontrarti" (here it is difficult to establish which version is better, I must say that I find the original a bit outdated today), and with a billiard shot they give rhythm to a song full of bass like "E penso a te" (as a die-hard Battisti fan, I appreciated it over time, I admit, but today, perhaps, this version is more on my mind). With Bersani Samuele, they remake Gaber's "L'illogica allegria," and it works wonderfully.

Sometimes, in the end, there's no need to change too much. "Giugno '73" (excluding an accordion passage) and "La costruzione di un amore" are fundamentally similar to the originals. But even here, that pathos and that charge of gloom that LaCrus has always carried with them, makes the tracks even more intense than we knew them (it's not lèse-majesté against De André, heaven forbid, but this version has something that attracts me to itself, and what is it? I don't know, make your call). The sweet electric guitar (sweet, an electric guitar, it seems a contradiction) of Nada's "Insieme mai" is something to lull into until you're exhausted (and thus never).

Indeed, a masterpiece. Total. Unless you live as genre puritans, then this record might even seem like blasphemy. Debatable choices, obviously.