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Rating:
In Catartica, the debut album of Marlene, everything that our (or at least my) heroes will be is already present.
Just listen to the pompous "M.K.", the opening track (the guys were already aware of their worth) which has a nice full and clanking sound, the very sweet "Nuotando nell'aria", with a final crescendo that brings tears, the angry antisocial nature of "Festa mesta", the irony of "Merry X-Mas", the resignation of "Canzone di domani", the mood of obsessive inevitability of "1° 2° 3°", the engaging riff of "Sonica" (now the Marlene manifesto: the roar of the audience when they start this track live fully demonstrates it), the dreamy quiet of the well-known "Lieve" (also performed by C.S.I.)...
Every mood, feeling, sensation, is represented in this album.
Cristiano Godano's writing is a particularly atypical case in Italy: it harmoniously combines (incredible to say) vulgarity and lyricism, extreme refinement and naïveté; with empathy, it manages to evoke very sweet sensations or to spark anger in the listener. His voice is then something very peculiar, equally capable of infinite sweetness and overwhelming violence, unique.
The sound component, due to the dual genius of Riccardo Tesio and Cristiano Godano, has no equal or precedent in Italy. Marlene is the only band that, from the debut, already plays at the same level as the best American and English rock bands.
The album pays a bit of a tribute to Cristiano's main inspirers (I think in particular of the Sonic Youth of Dirty), but the cultural roots are assimilated by M.K. in a blend never heard before. In the following albums, they will mark their distinctive path through distortions more clearly (and Cristiano will learn to sing better), but the album remains an indispensable piece of history.
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