Lorenzo Cavazzini
Nulla Low Cost

Lorenzo Cavazzini: Nulla Low Cost (self-produced - 2021)

I really like this album. I want to say it clearly and simply in the first line.

I've been listening to it for two or three months, amidst my other listens, which are 99% classics of rock, pop, and singer-songwriter music. An anomaly.

I consider this «Nulla Low Cost» by Lorenzo Cavazzini, dated 2021, a fine example of compositional talent and production care. I appreciate the concept, the lyrics, the music, the songs as a whole, the instrumental parts, the sounds. It looks and sounds like the album of a good rock singer-songwriter produced by a major. It contains that idea of a "sincere, necessary, and well-made" song that the current market risks making me stop looking for among contemporaries.

Do they do it on purpose to make us forget what a good work is like? I don't know, I think so, but this artist holds on well. He does beautiful and intelligent things, producing them how and with whom he pleases: is it the new Resistance? I don’t want to pronounce such an absolute judgment, but I like this idea!

The lyrics, the concept

The entire album identifies itself from the cover as a harsh social critique: it talks about contemporary society with its illusion of satisfying man with the unlimited consumption of material and immaterial goods. But are we really satisfied? From the discomfort brought and expressed by human beings, one by one or all together, it would seem not.

It's a topic that is both very complex but also trivialized to the point of insensitivity by the continuous background of hypocritical chatter from those who have taken it as a habit to describe the problems and complain about them, perhaps to pretend they are not part of it. And how do you turn it into a pop key? Perhaps with irony and the desire to live real life; with the participation of the whole body and not just the finger writing on social media. Cavazzini sings «What does it mean "it's people’s fault," while you are the people?» This irony is not lacking and, moreover, his sharp point of view and his way of expressing himself are not lacking originality, or even some eccentricity.

The music

Musically, I find it draws from good independent rock. The kind from when one didn’t say "Indie" while making quotes with two fingers in the air like losers. The pre-loser independent music, to put it in a nutshell. I say it "draws" without any negative connotation, because the artist is never subservient to a style or genre, he navigates in a sea of music with great independence. You can recognize the roots and they are good roots, undoubtedly.

The most impactful recognition, the one that surfaces immediately, is that of CCCP, among acidic and disturbed distortions and some traits of rhythmically monotone and shrill, mechanical, and desperate declaimed text. Very coherent with the theme of the album, after all. But this style, here, is reworked in its own way and, above all, that's not the only thing: there is other Rock, modern and ancient, besides Rhythm’n’Blues up to the boundary with dance Dance. And it entertains. Beautiful orchestrations rich with bass groove and drums, very rhythmic guitar riffs, synthetic sounds, lyrical moments wrapped in atmospheres of long reverbs, very powerful, healthy, and well-sung choruses. Then the singer-songwriter himself sings well: a beautiful voice that he uses well and without holding back, which is not entirely frequent.

The first listen

I found the album on YouTube, which made me enter through track 4 Fango e fiori which is probably the one that became more visible due to intrinsic merits... and I agree with the algorithm this time. I make this clarification because the problem with passionately listening to an artist's work you don't know is entering their world and developing the right sensitivity to tune in well with what they are expressing. And this entry from track 4 was very positive in drawing me into the matter. In fact, I found even better than this track 4, which I would call "the single," and that "better" was in a slow and meditative piece from which, however, I couldn't have started with a sufficiently attentive listen. But let's proceed in order.

The songs

Track 1: Fish and Monkeys

The opening track of the album is a good rhythmic and accusatory rock piece, of mature and not desperate rebellion: poised. It's the point of view of someone who observes the world seeing it and observing it in its mistakes. Mature and disillusioned rock. This is the track where the CCCP influence seems to me to be the most powerful and explicit, with a very regular structure up to an almost nursery rhyme cadence. I will like other tracks on the album more, but this one is indeed a strong rock impact. It asks you «Do you know what hurts??» and then explains what it is.

Track 2: Flees and Deceives

Here, a slower and smokier ballad, synths enter in abundance. It’s an atmospheric piece that, when it emerges from the limbo of questions (after an instructional minute), starts to take a good step guided by the bass, evolving into an assertion «take a breath and do it now!», remaining in a balance between phases of question and answer, like in a beautiful inner dialogue that you can have in real life.

Track 3: Life or Trick

Who tricks us? We trick ourselves, that's who! «Slaves of a fake well-being», meanwhile, we roam thirsty and drunk with parties. I would define it as a ballad on a disco-dance rhythmic base. I really like the production effect used in the intro, where a somewhat deviant and drunk chorus leads into the harmony of the track, taking the listener on a disorienting path. Nice idea, nice execution. A danceable piece, while the lyrics don’t joke much, and the password reiterated continuously like a mantra, «Social, you're on social!», after a while it asks you if it's right to keep dancing or if it's better to stop and reflect.

Track 4: Mud and Flowers

Behold, I think we enter the hot zone exactly here. This is a piece that no one else knew how to do. It took the little-known Cavazzini, with all the humility of someone who works and then works and then works. How do I know? I have ears, you can hear it.

Meanwhile, «the first form of racism is born at home» is not easy to sing. Maybe a rapper tells it, with all the case facilitations, if he has enough neurons to formulate it; he can semi-sing it... but to put it in melodic form and do it well requires someone with talent.

The beat is pounding rock, and even if the volume is already high, you feel like turning it up.

Then comes the question «what does it mean "it's people’s fault," while you are the people?» and this phrase, in my opinion, is a bomb, but loaded with intelligence.

In the track, other echoes of spoken word begin to interlock CCCP-style, up to «Consumerism will consume us».

Track 5: Nothing to Nothing

Songs with contents of concrete reality up to the vulgarity, in a practically psychedelic wrapper, with acidic, delirious instrumental parts, communicative in their own right, taking long spaces. And why not do it? Variety, you have to be able to do it but if you can, do it. Well.

Track 6: Same and Different

For my part, it’s the masterpiece of the album, the meditative moment. It’s the guitar ballad in which the emotional storm of the album merges into a moment of solitude, the lyrical enchantment. I think it’s a track that, if you haven't heard the others, perhaps you're not ready to understand it. «Every man is the same and different, deep down lost»... «Every war is the same and different, ultimately lost»... «The flower of youth is fresh snow»... «Thoughts and dreams like butterflies in the wind»...

Really, believe me: many try to write a piece like this, but try it yourself if you're not satisfied. And you will see that this piece is beyond the normal. Many people should stop elbowing and make room for those with talent, for example, this gentleman here. Because otherwise, in the midst of all the noise, there's a risk of losing good music.

Track 7: Life or Trick (reprise)

As the title says, it's the reprise of track 3, in a conclusive form, placed at the end of the album.

The author

In conclusion, a note on the author, who is not just anyone, but the lead voice of the Corvi in their current lineup. So a professional you might meet on important stages with a different repertoire and who, at this point, I believe carries in his pocket a little gem to keep pure and untainted: his individual dimension, his personal talent as a rock author.

Links

First, I directly recommend the link to Mud and Flowers:

https://youtu.be/7mqkJV-FOVA?si=p7NqArADXu--lihx

The whole album is available at this link:

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_n__GSReXYXoCUN8vLmBbiEga6C8oD6hSw&si=mONHkCAu8Gy9Rq7X