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Rating: The Lights of the Power Plant have been turned back on. Some are thrilled, others could have done without it. A great deal of light has been produced for this "Constellations," enough to reach the sky and illuminate all of Emilia. Sometimes it disperses, sometimes it manages to light up a portion of the sky with stories never seen before. It is important to maintain a neutral point of view.
Vasco Brondi, not even thirty, who found himself suddenly becoming a singer-songwriter icon of the "Zero Years" generation, the one without children and nothing to talk about. But this time, for the third studio album, after the EP "C'eravamo abbastanza amati," released by Repubblica in 2011, the approach he takes with his guitar is different. There is no longer a whirlwind of autobiographical voices lost in rhetoric, in the landscapes of public housing and sunsets that set the sky on fire.
This time, Brondi tells stories. Stories of people, of various topics, always maintaining his cryptic, deliberately ambiguous style. 15 tracks, 15 stories or rather "accounts," trying to give a better overall view to the sky of the music scene. Stories that connect, form constellations, and shine, becoming ours, deep in our soul we make them our own. It really spans many genres, from the theatrical style of Pierpaolo Capovilla in "MacBeth nella nebbia," to the Battisti-inspired "La terra, l'Emilia, la luna," from the ministerial anger of "Firmamento" to the surprise electronics of "Ti vendi bene." Electronics that often cover a good part of the album. The sounds this time are rich, hefty, connected, and well-structured. The visionary lyrics, perhaps with no apparent sense, of Brondi this time assume new colors, new shapes, and new harmonies thanks to the soft embrace offered by the instrumental part, also due to the skilful work of Federico Dragogna.
The acoustic guitar, a trademark, this time cooperates with a more skilful use of percussion and effects, allowing the songs to rise beyond the sparse two-dimensionality of the previous two LPs. Call it Pop (the nerve-wracking "papapa" of "destini generali"), call it selling out (the album was released by Sony), but Brondi's new album certainly will not go unnoticed.
It is certain that the singer-songwriter, in trying to cover as wide a range as possible, sometimes overdoes it, including pieces that do not guarantee compositional homogeneity ("Questo scontro tranquillo," "Blues del delta del Po"). The predetermined goal has been achieved nonetheless: from the desecrated beach, we can now look up to our portion of stars, searching for our story, expertly narrated between the lines of a bar on the Milky Way.
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Other reviews
By Blujules
A pure poetic flow made of cities, cities no one wants, the skies above industrial neighborhoods...
TOTAL POETRY IN MUSIC. Majakovskij without manifestos, a post-industrial Whitman singing asphalt instead of earth and anti-theft alarms in place of birdsongs.
By tomic
It absolutely is Italy, and each of those places, but it’s not a physical place, not solely; it’s the state of a generation.
They are bare wires, they emit light, small charges of energy.
By Kurtd
I believe that these people, after all, have left us something, what I can’t forgive you is the fact that you write shitty songs, nonsensical things that you pass off as poetry.
The first is that there are still people like me who you will never change their mind.
