Ministri
Cultura Generale

I'm sorry, but no. It's not enough to go to Berlin, get your album produced by the guy who worked with the Strokes, Gordon Raphael, to make a good album. If you're going all the way over there, recording at the Rundfunk studios with a producer of this caliber, you can at least have the decency to bring something good, well-crafted. For making "Cultura generale", you could have stayed in Milan and done it faster.

Because this is an album without soul, with very few flashes of creativity and looooooads of fillers. Apparently, the inventiveness was scarce, but the album had to be made, you can't slip up, that's not allowed, so let's throw everything into this pot and publish whatever comes out, because time is tight. That's the impression after listening to it several times, full stop.

The idea of recording it live, without much tweaking in the end, only helps the drums, which finally stand out more (before, you could barely hear them). In contrast, the singer's voice loses a lot, showing all its limitations, already clearly shown live (where, however, they play and hold the stage well).

The start isn't the best, since "Cronometrare la polvere" passes by and after 2 minutes you don't even remember it. Meh, whatever.

Then you get "Balla quello che c'è", a track like so many others, nothing special. It shares its uselessness with "Estate povera" (which only has the idea of making an interactive video as a positive), where the lyrics are truly, truly poor. "Macchine sportive", at least, will be enjoyable live, since it has the singular function of pounding away. The ironic lyrics are cute and nothing more.

"Le porte" is terrible, the worst track ever, not just of the album. If Dear Jack had done it, you wouldn't notice (and that's enough).

"Io sono fatto di neve" is the light at the end of the tunnel. A beautiful slow piece, supported by a fairly good text. Finally, maybe now there's a breakthrough.

But no. "Idioti" has a good instrumental base supported by a HORRIBLE lyrics, the fair of banality, which stands out at the end: "idioti, nel migliore dei casi vi sentite cattivi, nel peggiore lo siete per sentirvi vivi". But please, AHAHAHAHAH, are you serious? Is this supposed to be an intellectual, well-thought-out phrase from a cultured person? What a pity because the singing/shouting and the music are more than good; if the lyrics were up to par, we'd be talking about an excellent piece, but not like this, under these conditions I can't.

"Lei non deve stare male mai" is a big slow one about wanting the partner never to feel bad, even at the cost of sacrificing oneself, because in a relationship the most important aspect is the common good. What a pity that on a minimalist base the singer struggles tremendously to hit the high notes and this sensation is a bit annoying, pity for the missed opportunity.

"Il giorno che riprovo a prendermi" is a poor copy of many past pieces, very little to offer. "Vivere da signori" is the second part of "Macchine sportive", leaving the time it finds.

And we finally reach the standout piece. "Cultura generale" is something different, just over two minutes of an unsettling portrait of the country. A very, very well-executed and fitting experiment.

Finally, if we might call it the true masterpiece of the album: Sabotaggi. A beautiful intimate piece where the singer's voice not only holds up but excels and engages. The music does its job well and grows until it explodes at the end, putting a close to the record. Really not bad, too bad it's an isolated case in the record.

Ultimately, a very mediocre album, with very few highlights (Io sono fatto di neve, Cultura generale, and Sabotaggi) and many shadows. "Per un passato migliore" was of a completely different kind, more genuine and immediate, here everything seems poorly thought out, thrown together haphazardly, you can really feel the lack of time. If this is the result, the best solution would have been to postpone the release and work on it more, but unfortunately, that wasn't possible (or was it?).

What's striking, moreover, but also evident from the previous work, is the intent to no longer try to embrace new shores, new musical forms, new contaminations. Simple, direct songs with identical metric structure have been chosen (rejecting not a little the work done with Fuori); very well, I say, but if you've chosen this path you have to do it right, otherwise it's just a waste of time. Like the time spent listening to this record.