Marco Castello
Pezzi Della Sera

Let's start with the premise that Marco Castello is a more than capable and talented musician, arranger, and composer. This is an undeservedly harsh review for an album that has multiple merits and qualities that should not be underestimated.

Castello is clever, or simply lucky.

He managed to hit that musical zeitgeist demanded by a certain segment of Italian listeners, the spirit that began with Nu Genea and transformed, not without a certain hypocrisy, into a mania of revisiting certain seventies sounds straddling disco and funk with a sprinkle of melodic songs so that the healthy Italian parochialism, always present and never dormant, receives some coquettish adulation. And after a career in jazz and experimental music, Castello has decided to fully embrace this trend.

The album is not bad at all. It is so crystal clear in its total lack of sincerity that it can be appreciated for what it is, without too many expectations. It is a calligraphic reference to the late-seventies sound of Pino Daniele, Tony Esposito, and Alan Sorrenti, conveniently cleaned, packaged, and TikTok-ized for the audience it targets. The stylistic exercise is almost pedantic in its characteristics: muted drums almost making them sound like cardboard, slightly saturated Wurlitzer, syncopated breaks along with the horn section, some harmless sprinkles of synth (damn, bro, the warmth of analog!!), pieces based on some melodic or rhythmic hook.

All the ingredients are there, the recipe is tried and true, the mouths to feed are the right ones. Castello had a job to do and he perfectly fulfilled his duties. It's a pity that, in doing so, he created a product as glossy as it is devoid of any real underlying energy. The pieces are very well made and there's clearly excellent arranging work behind them, but there seems to be no difference between a second before they start and a second after they end.

The lyrics are acceptable at best, embarrassing at worst. Castello uses profanity like a high schooler who has just discovered that putting swear words in poems makes them damn sincere. Except that, as determined before, sincerity is not one of Castello's prerogatives at this moment. The only voice out of the choir: Melo, the closing piece (with an almost Battiato-esque flair), the only oasis of spontaneity in a desert of poses.

The music of Pezzi della Sera is not badly made or unlistenable: its main sin lies in being conceived, born, and grown as a product, as a vibe without too much substance to scare us.

And before I'm accused of snobbery: I've always been a fan of revisiting past musical languages. The condition is that this happens for sincere artistic research and not just to take advantage of a discount on formaldehyde. I'm disappointed, but not surprised.