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Rating: The pouring rain and humidity that pervades the wait outside the Blackout contrasts with the return of Massimo Volume to Rome. We've been waiting for them for some time; they couldn't have chosen a better climate to bring their snapshots, harmonies, and dissonances back to the capital.
Mimì never disappoints, not even tonight as he presents the new album "Aspettando i barbari," which shakes and vibrates, tracing a musical journey that continues from what he left three years ago.
But is it a return for Massimo Volume? Perhaps I am the one who has returned to them. Mimì Clementi never left us; his voice, at times stentorian, at times sweet, at times desperate, always lucid, never stopped telling stories, fragments, pieces of lives. One cannot listen to their songs without being struck by the lyrics, stripped of any frills, polished to the point of seeming like stories not written but merely narrated.
The interplay between the voice and the guitar tapestries, sometimes harsh, sometimes enveloping, once again captivates; it is the stripped-down music that gives the night’s characters their vital space.
As Clementi himself explained years ago, a happy encounter between a musical phrase and a spoken line can be as powerful and effective as the winning melody of a chorus, which we are simply more accustomed to due to mercantile pop culture.
I believe the magic of Massimo Volume resides in a series of characteristics, in their co-presence. Musically, I find the dialogue between the two guitars beautiful: Pilia's is dirtier and meaner, while Sommacal's is more refined and elaborate, both supported by the rhythmic base of Vittoria Burattini and Clementi himself on bass; above it all, Clementi’s voice and words, which can narrate like few others, making one perceive the "right after" of an often small event, yet one he knows how to render universal.
I'm struck by his ability to construct syntactically perfect sentences using common words; I don't know if this is enough to make him a poet, but it certainly distinguishes him from other so-called poets with a dictionary in hand (in search of a striking word). I am sure, however, that this process is already a musical operation itself, and I know that tonight, in front of a diverse audience, the magic of Massimo Volume captivated both young people newly discovering their music and forty-somethings like me who, asking themselves, "...is this what we are?" perhaps couldn't hold back a bit of emotion.
Enjoy yourselves, Mimì tells us at the end of the concert. He leaves us with this simple phrase which, at the same time, is so minimal that it encompasses everything. "Like it or not."
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