Marlene Kuntz
Il Vile

Released two years after the debut "Catartica," an album built on the guitar riffs of frontman Godano and Riccardo Tesio, the Marlene Kuntz present a more homogeneous work compared to what was essentially the best of songs written in youth, as often happens in debut albums. "Il vile" is an album tough, hard to penetrate and understand, steeped in physical pain and an apparently incurable existential unease, and the harshness that pervades the group's minds (and particularly that of Cristiano Godano), already present in "Catartica," crystallizes here in the inability to change the world around us. All achieved here too, with Godano's guitars and voice, sharper and more complete than the past album; the qualitative tension of the tracks does not concede the slightest error (as had happened in two cases in "Catartica").

"3 di 3," the album's opener, is raw and relentlessly ironic, almost "annoying" at first listen; in "Retrattile" Godano gives his best in the lyrics, a psychological parable centered on society and the destructive role it plays on the personality and dignity of people (“Parassitare per la nuova dignità è un surrogato delle andate vanità. Così disponi e sei esplicito col beige che non ti dona ma ti spara via dai guai”) that ends with a resigned "probably I deserved more." "L’agguato" is the first masterpiece of the album; it starts melancholic to build into an emotional crescendo that structurally recalls the post-core of Slint and sonically the Sonic Youth (for those who don't know, the primary inspiration group of Marlene Kuntz to which they have been compared ad nauseam) culminating in the terror/pain screams of the unfortunate. It's the story of a car accident that happens in a “esiziale, secco e disumano scarto di secondo che vale tanto” metaphor of the horror inhabiting everyday life, ready to unleash its fury at any moment. Singing and the group's sonic compactness here reach a perfection only sketched in previous songs. "Cenere," dirty and compelling, is a story of carnal sex where the protagonists (whose role is unclear) are the Cabin Boy, who smells like his slop, a child, and unsettling female presences in a smoky and noisy discotheque. The guitars are perfect and glacial, and Dan Solo's bass is stripped to the bone. "Come stavamo ieri" is a nostalgic and fairly clean and accessible song, despite being complex both in text and in music (“Quanto fa male devastare gli argini del nostro scorrere”). "Overflash," highly driven and filled with a particular energy distributed by Godano and Tesio's sharp guitars, is, using Godano's own words, “the delirium of one of two characters about to die of an overdose... the other theoretically should feel very good in their flashes... there's, therefore, a very chaotic, very complex, embarrassing situation”.

If, as some do, "Il Vile" can be considered a parable of the implosion of suffering, "Ape regina" is undoubtedly the apex of the parable and the masterpiece of the album. Built on a minimal guitar and a bass that is also pushed to the max, it is an intensely deep song and difficult to interpret; the protagonist, along with three unknown figures, is a love experienced from a distance not marked by space but stigmatized by the death of the beloved; it is, to use the group's words on the official website, a story of uncertainty, doubts, hesitations, misunderstandings, irritations, infections, absence, presences, torments, screams, and fury (“E in queste stanze si urla e un tonfo scuce la pelle, glaciale un brivido sale dal basso, scompaio: non ci son più. Non ci sei più. Non ci son più. Non ci sei più. Non ci sei più”) (“Nasconderò con miele colante il vuoto che avanza”). The ironic "L’esangue Deborah" and the intimate and splendid "Ti giro intorno" (“Voglio la via più facile per avere quiete complice. Voglio te dentro me per farcela”), the most melodic songs on the album, pave the way for the album's finale, made up of "E non cessa di girare la mia testa in mezzo al mare," ironically covering a simple pop structure of punk bacchanals, and "Il vile," with that guitar riff glacial as chalk squeaking on the blackboard yet originally incisive, a song that addresses – in an oblique and sharp way – the theme of the depth/lightness of life, to end with hope quickly drowned in the awareness of one's nature (“Vorrei colpire al cuore e conquistare il tuo stupore. Ma è così dura, credi, e sento che non lo so fare”).