Ladri di Mescal
La violenza del benessere

How to express all the energy within when barriers, walls, and horizons that seem unreachable rise before our eyes? With their second studio work, Ladri di Mescal gather experiences, encounters, places, and distortions of (very Italian) society that cannot help but fall into futility and the tedious pursuit of a life beyond any possibility.

All the tracks on the album draw attention to a feeling or sensation: in particular, the title track "La violenza del benessere" has a warm and compelling sound, supported by slightly vintage timbres that would set the hearts of seventies nostalgics on fire, complete with an intro (at the opening of the album) with Marcella Bellini's voice hitting very high notes with conviction and real passion.

With a certain departure from the classic pop structure, the following tracks arrive, supported by synths and keyboards but led by rhythmic and lead guitars. "Sempre sognare" and "Pensieri distorti" bring out the band's rougher and more electric side thanks to Marco Mancini's rhythms and Francesco Giacalone's lead guitars, capturing attention and taking the album to a new and exciting level. After a segment that barely touches prog, the more intimate part of the album arrives with the bluesy atmospheres of "Mentre sorride" and a light but catchy pop breeze in "Piazza Mastai" and "Non ti muovere". In the latter, the group returns to the previous tracks with a second part rich in sounds, echoes, and inspired "solos." In these tracks, there is a stronger influence of international rock that almost entirely departs from the typically Italian path, also thanks to bass lines (specifically Riccardo Fortuna) never subdued in the sole rhythmic part.

In closing, only light tracks, definable as "easy listening", where the album has almost "squeezed out" every drop of emotion. "La festa di Santa Rosa," sung by Marco Mancini, evokes village festivities far from the ordinary, and with irony, lists situations and characters in black and white, chaotically and noisily recalled like in a Sunday talk show RVM.

"Ogni tua parola," singer-songwriter to the core, serves to close the circle, affirming all that the group has already musically and intellectually expressed.

La violenza del benessere helps us understand how a good listen is important (at least once in a while), especially if it evokes expressions and situations that are very close and tangible. A good Italian band that doesn't wink at commercialism at all costs (the lyrics by Mancini and D'Orazio are elegant and never banal), with sounds that catapult backward like a time machine showing us what is and what perhaps will never be again.