La Crus
Dentro Me

Mauro Ermanno Giovanardi, singer of the Milanese group La Crus, is fundamentally a chronic depressive. Probably, if questioned on the subject, he would swear and insist that it's not true, that they're all lies and falsehoods. In the few emails we exchanged some time ago, in which I asked him about a not well-specified concert in Rimini (a concert I couldn't attend because, so it seems, La Crus are disliked by the whole world except for me and a few exceptions, and I didn’t feel like going there alone), he also displayed a certain verve, a supposed loquacity, but, despite my nickname, he didn’t fool me: perpetually lost gaze, pout, frightening dark circles that adorn a hollow face, low and trembling voice, everything in him reveals this underlying sadness, a sadness to which the other members of the group, Alessandro Cremonesi and Cesare Malfatti, seem to align themselves very well, pampering it, nurturing it and not hindering it at all. So: I am about to review a record by a bunch of depressives. Couldn't I just leave it and go do something like, I don’t know, a bike ride, one might wonder? Yes, actually I could. But it's about to rain. And besides, I don't have a bike.

I encountered La Crus in a way that suits me, that is by chance. On a rainy afternoon, when I had taken refuge, cursing, in a music store as I was without an umbrella, a cover on the ARTISTI ITALIANI OFFERTE shelf attracted me, where yellowish, brownish, greenish mixed with black and the three blurry faces on the left seemed to be preying on some dark thoughts. The printed letters read Dentro Me – La Crus. A few hours later I was in bed, eyes closed, floating on the notes of the album that would become one of my favorites, the soundtrack of a thousand days, evenings, trips, meetings, and, why not?, a thousand healthy cries.

Dentro Me is intimacy made into an album, in a triple sense.
The atmospheres are rarefied, very soft, thanks to the extensive use of muted trumpet, acoustic guitar, strings, and the use of samples and electronics which, strange but true, further enhance the muffled quality (muffledness? muffledum? Oh well) of the pieces, without cooling the tone or making it antiseptic. The style is a refined rock with some "Caposselian" turns, and indeed in one of the tracks, 34 Anni, Capossela is a welcome guest, a splash of blues in "Qui Vicino A Te", and only a small instrumental episode, the song "Da Un’Altra Parte", where the harmony of the sampled piano and trumpet weave with electronic drums and strings in an almost trip-hop loop, hypnotic and fascinating.
Secondly, the intimacy of the lyrics: they all primarily deal with feelings.
No speeches, no hard struggle without fear, no blatant political engagement, just the difficulty of living ("io non so/quante sere ho consumato a bere/e poi resta tutto uguale a ieri" - Le Luci Al Neon Dei Baracchini), the searing and unrequited passion, that hollows your stomach and makes living unbearable ("sei la cella e il prigioniero/l’illusione che cadrà/come sempre l’unica realtà/tu sei l’alito che guida/le mie dita su di te/sei il respiro dentro ai miei perché/tu sei l’inverno in fondo al cuore/sei l’estate che non c’è/tu sei la via che passa dentro me" - Come Ogni Volta), the isolation and incommunicability that only love can chip away ("non esiste alba abbastanza chiara/non esiste notte abbastanza scura/non esiste cibo che possa sfamarmi/non esiste sguardo che possa ferirmi/tutto è dentro me//ma quando io ti guardo/tutto quanto cambia/quando io ti guardo il tempo si ferma/tu sei dentro me" - Dentro Me) and much more.
There are only two lively episodes in La Crus' work, Dragon and Correre, the first has a taut bass and a keyboard that makes you want to dance, the second a very fine drum&bass track, but disenchantment and melancholy seep even in these cases, especially in Correre (one must spend life running, faster than machines, but where, from where, until when, why?).

The album is intimate also for a third reason: in the songs, although credited to all members, Giovanardi mainly speaks about himself. He recounts without hesitation and from every word, like a flood, everything that crosses his mind overflows, every thought, every conjecture about his and human condition (but mostly his), about his and human sorrows (but mostly his). The result could be a desperate and despairing narcissistic soliloquy, and yet it isn't, because the listener is led to fully identify with what is sung, whispered, shouted, until realizing that, yes, many times they have felt EXACTLY LIKE THAT. This is precisely what makes the album's only flaw forgivable, the irritating Inventario, in which Mauro Ermanno lets us know that in his room, the walls have a Giacomo Spazio painting (not Brother Indovino's calendar, not trivial stuff), his nightstand boasts an old Elfo ticket (not one from Circo Desmond, not trivial stuff), there are the inevitable withered roses, and his stereo plays Jacques Brel (not Sabrina Salerno, not trivial stuff), in short, he lets us know that he is TRULY a gloomy and tormented intellectual, so sensitive (not trivial stuff). But the attentive listener smiles, indulgently, and forgives. Closes their eyes and resumes floating.