Massimo Volume
Cattive Abitudini

“I saw the best minds of my generation begging for a presence on the Saturday night variety show. Their transgressive look, their pallor, perfectly matched the topic of the episode”.

Summing up or trying to explain what ignited within me when I inserted the CD into the stereo, put the headphones on, and hit Play, and suddenly “Cattive abitudini” started, is pointless. This review is an invitation, or, if you prefer, a plea to listen. Eleven years have passed since the last masterpiece. It seems like many, too many, for a band sacred to the few but unknown to most like Massimo Volume. They have been enough to produce a milestone of Italian music, which surprised me as few albums have in my life. They haven’t changed. As the best musical (and artistic) tradition teaches, one can be original without falling into excessive avant-gardism; nothing disappears as long as it is remembered and revived. I was moved by the minimalism, the stellar melodies, the humble symbols, the vitality these simple, faint tracks emit.

Lost between Rimbaud, early post-rock, and the post-hardcore of Fugazi, they are profoundly human. They describe what nobody believes needs to be described; the little things do not exist. Italian pioneer of spoken word, Emidio Clementi narrates his reality without futile diaristic attitudes, he challenges society without illusions or ulterior motives, screams without shouting, loves without hesitation.

“And so we come forward much the same as those of yesterday, clinging to an image/condemned to describe us. Tell me, isn’t it so?? And then we find ourselves/ divided by new alliances/ with nothing left to hide. Just more careful in showing the points/ where life stagnates/ the bad habits/ almost always satisfied”.