Litfiba
Essere o Sembrare

There are details that, despite being by nature “peripheral” or “elusive,” sometimes offer a kind of loophole through which entire scenarios can be glimpsed. Assuming that the title of a work can be considered a detail, it is, in my opinion, the case of "Essere o Sembrare": in a meta-textual sense (i.e., music talking about itself), it captures the shockwave of criticism that has polemically involved the group's most recent events and reveals the poetics underlying the whole work "we are aware that you are observing, judging, appreciating or criticizing us." Perfect, on a truly very elegant and refined cover (another superficial-but-not-too-much detail), the title offers the Nevsky Perspective from which to observe the history of a group, its music, and, ultimately, the history of Italian rock over the last two decades into which Litfiba is well integrated. The musical content certainly is not the "debut" of a "new" group, nor probably (for now), the decisive affirmation of what guitarist Federico (Ghigo) Renzulli has defined as “Litfiba's fourth phase”, that is, the segment of the circumference that follows the beginnings (“Guerra,” “Eneide di Krypton,” “Yassassin”…), the “trilogy of power” (“Desaparecido,” “17 Re,” and “Litfiba 3”), and the “quadrilogy of elements” (from the epic of the great commercial success of “El Diablo” to “Mondi Sommersi,” plus “Infinito,” “Croce e Delizia,” and various collections). In this case, it is an interlocutory album, a transition towards something else, where it is more important to observe the forming of the new artistic profile and the new status of the band than the value in themselves of the individual songs.

"Cambia il vento, cambiano i confini": Litfiba is trying to update themselves and recontextualize their proposal in the scenario of Italian music of 2006. A very strange context, moreover, where alongside the cultured recovery of a certain “authorial” past and a certain ethnic and popular heritage, there is an increasingly massive and less (culturally) "filtered" importation of Anglo-American stylistic forms and canons. In this sense, it does not matter much to establish whether the songs on the album are pop songs cloaked in rock sounds, rather than rock with a more evident pop component (as it has always been from Joy Division to Nirvana). It is also superfluous to note that the “weak point” is the lyrics, even because “in a song, the words are only the faint trace left by the intertwining of overtones and undertones that constitute the true depth of a piece” (M. De Dominicis). These are today's Litfiba: situated in "no man's land" between Negramaro and Coldplay, with the still vivid reminiscences of the Italian New Wave (Diaframma above all), Litfiba is embarking on that arc of circle they should manage to close. Not yet knowing if such a circle “has lost its center” is (in my opinion) sure that Renzulli's clear awareness of being able to fit Litfiba's musical proposal into the artistic and market space located between mainstream, historical simulacra, and "new" trends represents a guarantee. If this is so, as it transpires from the best episodes of the album ("Sottile Ramo", "La Tela del Ragno"), it is very likely that this new course will lead to the reaffirmation of Litfiba. If not, it is “only” a great group that, beyond the historical judgment, has every right to continue to exist.