Lorre
Roghi Dei Libri

The most beautiful surprises come when you least expect them.

You arrive one day, fresh as a daisy, unaware of what might happen to you, and you stumble upon certain albums poised to make or break your day, in a positive or negative way. It can also happen with movies, books, sunsets, human interactions, cigarette smoke, or nighttime dreams. But it doesn't matter. In this review, we're talking about music, the art of expressing emotions through the assemblage of seven notes destined to be keys to heaven or hell. Now, let's get to the concept, the subject of my writing: "Roghi Dei Libri" by Lorre, an extremely Italian group of three twisted minds. A debut that sounds like an explosion behind your house, demolishing the neighbor's home.

Nothing new, to be clear. There are plenty of alternative bands taking the new wave route, dissecting it with sudden bursts of electronics and a twilight voice, but in its brevity (five tracks), "Roghi Dei Libri" becomes an abyss. A genre already explored and music rich in references (The Cure, Interpol, the Radiohead of "Kid A"...) suddenly becomes an irretrievable godsend. Ready to be seized. Because, damn it, this record is a damn bomb. A grenade aimed at the soul.

Right when the intro starts, the single "The Mother Of Lovers", you feel pierced by an unconscious state of trip: rhythms that soar and drag you along. A catchy beat, but not too much, in its three and a half minutes of dark pop madness, of gentle sonic violence. And bam! Suddenly you find yourself humming it with chills, and when the simple "Lost In A Pill Of Modern Love" plays (echoes of anger, a single phrase repeated amidst the clattering of guitars and "Idioteque"-style beats), you're already in the eye of the storm. And when you find yourself at the bottom of the ocean, water filling your lungs and suffocating you, the track abruptly stops, allowing an epic and gloom-ridden "Libertine Sister" to claw its way out.

Riffs chasing each other, muffled screams over soundscapes. And the listener enters perfect symbiosis with the music's destructive rage. It becomes atmosphere, as the cigarettes in the ashtray draw poetic gray ellipses in the air, offbeat, but it doesn't matter. "We Are Complete Failures" is the ethereal opening of another great piece, initially calm and enveloping, then painted with almost post-rock guitar embraces, and it's still great, magnificent music, before a splendid "The Boy In The Grey" closes the circle: we're more on indie pop territory tinged with electronics, when the guitars return, majestic. Still dragging us along. Lifting us from the ocean's depths and pushing us to the shore to watch the setting sun. The sky blushing red. And then turning gray.

Darkness falls. The listening starts anew.