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Rating: LUCIO BATTISTI - "Our Dear Angel"
There are albums that stay with you forever, there are songs that imprint themselves in the collective imagination and others that are special only for you. Battisti's songs belong to everyone, but what an album can mean for each individual is something unique, a concentrate of memories, emotions, and hopes.
"La collina dei ciliegi" is another of Mogol's texts where the theme of flight is understood as freedom from the rules and conventions of society, written for an airy and constantly moving melody, "Ma è un canto brasileiro" is the rebellion against everything imposed on us by the media with a rock rhythm alternating with sweet acoustic moments, "La canzone della terra" is primitive in its tribal and bare rhythm as much as the protagonist's sweat and toil, "Il nostro caro angelo" is the peak of the album, a song of immense beauty, a circular melody with a "difficult" text composed of surreal images, if there were a tattoo of the soul, it would have its name...
"Le allettanti promesse" seems playful at first then hits you deeply with Mogol's words that lash out against the small-minded provincial mentality and Battisti covers his words with a lively melody immersing himself (as always) completely in the text, "Io gli ho detto no" is a love song where the electric piano is the protagonist of fluid and melancholic notes, it's the right pause to relax after the first 5 "committed" songs, "Prendi fra le mani la testa" is a song from '67 that Battisti and Mogol wrote for Riki Maiocchi, the version proposed here has a bass line that is unforgettable, it's a calm track, a slow funk that precedes the splendid "Questo inferno rosa", almost 7 minutes of poetry in music... who in the early '70s could even imagine composing such a piece?
It is the crowning of an album that perhaps will not remain in the collective memory but for those like me who have experienced it and still feel its charm, it is a little treasure to be jealously guarded.
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Other reviews
By the clash
Il Nostro Caro Angelo, an absolute masterpiece in Battisti’s career with a hermetic and obscure text.
A sophisticated, revolutionary, and misunderstood album by the critics of the time.
By Viva Lì
"Il nostro caro angelo is an innovative album, full of brilliant musical ideas, unfortunately, however, full of experimental extremisms, sometimes weak and inconclusive."
"The music becomes more intense, undeniably harmonious, yet lacks the solidity and elegance that had made 'Umanamente uomo: il sogno' a masterpiece."
By Martello
Where is he? I would like to know with all my heart. Not a message, not a word, not a stir, nothing.
He lives watching us. He feeds on roots and sleeps in the bushes under the trees.
By JpLoyRow
I called myself a fool because underestimating something like this is foolish.
Battisti has always thought that music came before words, and here he fully demonstrates it, blending the two with astounding skill considering he was only 30 years old.
