Massimo Bubola
Segreti Trasparenti

THE REVIEW

Inside the CD by Massimo Bubola, in the booklet that for many years has taken the place of the large cardboard covers of the old long-playing records, there's a detail from Judith and Holofernes, a famous painting by Caravaggio.
The most catchy song in Bubola's entire work - Tutto è Legato - actually tells the story of Judith and Holofernes, but also of Abraham and Isaac and of Jesus on the cross. Judith and Holofernes is in the booklet, and the reference to the track just mentioned is obvious, but one wonders if perhaps for a moment the team that curated the design of this new album titled "Segreti Trasparenti" considered also including the face of Fabrizio De André, with whom Bubola was a great collaborator for years, because it's evident that all eleven tracks suffer from that deep and fruitful connection (22 songs written with the great Genoese singer-songwriter, now deceased) but they nevertheless fail to match the master's touch.
The touch probably lies in balancing the poetic impulse with the rock spirit, which in definitively the album by Bubola, by conscious choice, cannot control. The excessive introspection makes Bubola's album, on prolonged listening, more challenging than expected.

Musically impeccable, "Segreti Trasparenti" in my view goes too far, never easing up, ultimately giving the impression of taking itself too seriously. De André knew how to do it, Massimo Bubola does not. As if to say: great album, if taken in small doses.
Bubola pays homage to his friend De André with the ballad Specialmente in Gennaio.
One wonders if someone had the temptation to include in the CD's inner booklet also the face of Bubola’s brother, Giovanni Maria, who passed away in 1970 at only 12 years old. For the first time, the musician decides to speak about him publicly and does so with the grace and refinement that distinguish him, in a track with a title that seems like a whisper: Stai con me.
Upon further reflection, the people departed to whom Bubola pays tribute (also Gaber is among them) would never have had a place in the booklet of the album: it is the music, and the poetry in his music, that constantly speaks to us about them.
An album therefore introspective, far from the last previous work (five years old) Diavoli & Farfalle, decidedly devoted to a more rock sound. Segreti Trasparenti also talks about our popular origins, Jetta la Luna is the most glaring example with the use of mandolins and Neapolitan dialect.

A very respectable lineup for this latest eagerly awaited work by the musician from Verona: Moreno Marchesin (drums), Simone Chivilò and Roberto Ortolan (guitars), and Piero Trevisan (bass). In the last track Tornano i Santi there's the participation of the American singer-songwriter Victoria Williams.