Ministri
Tempi bui

I begin my career on DeBaser with a review of an album already present in the archives, which, moreover, I don't even like much. No matter, I'll do my little job anyway.

The Ministri are a band quite popular in the underground culture of my area, so a little less than a couple of years ago, convinced by friends and various experts, I decided to listen to them, aided by the fact that they were described to me as a sort of lifeline for Italian rock. In short, a rock album, sung in Italian, released by Universal (!), which is supposed to also say something new: the story was interesting. So, I decide to get "Tempi Bui," the second full-length of the Milanese group.

However, the story continues like this: first listen, I remain quite skeptical. There's something wrong. Maybe because I hadn't touched this genre since 2000 and something with the old albums of Litfiba (which I still like, though), maybe it's me, who knows. I continue to listen to "Tempi Bui" for about a month, quite regularly, to find the qualities that had been described to me. Then, honestly, I got tired and changed the songs on my iPod.
Some more time passes, and these days arrive. I remember the Ministri: they released another album in 2010. After listening to the single, I decided not to delve deeper into the matter, but I would have gladly done a review of the previous album. Not that this aims to be an objective review, I would prefer to call it a rigorous way of saying what I think of this album.
"Tempi Bui" is essentially a rock album, with lyrics exclusively in Italian, that tends here to pop, there (very little) to punk hardcore, and in some corners, there are even some references to Italian singer-songwriter music (in the "ballads"). I won't go into a track-by-track review, preferring instead to focus on some areas of discussion.

The band's lyrics focus on a criticism of contemporary society: from politics, to those funny moneyed characters we see on TV far too often, to local crises. In short, dark times, which wouldn't even be a bad starting point. However, the way they are written and sung left me quite disheartened: the use of metaphor as an argumentative tool has something offensive. Following what the lyrics say becomes heavy, and beyond the heaviness, I had the feeling of "these guys are saying things I more or less already know, but in a way 10 times more complicated." Many times, even the use of vocabulary seems unfortunate to me:
For example, the incipit "Veramente vivo in tempi bui / e non è per rovinarti il pranzo / che ti dico arriva la marea / e tu la scambi per entusiasmo": I mean, guys, I understood what you want to say, but was all this really necessary? And such situations can be found more than once in the album.
In any case, I prefer they talk about these topics than Ligabue's happy hour, but that's another story.  

The instrumental/vocal part: with each listen to the album, the album always shows itself as new! Too bad, in this case, it's not a merit of the album: there are no riffs, loops, instrumental parts that are memorable. In fairness, it's also true that there's nothing bad, but the instruments never stand out, limiting themselves to providing support to the vocal part. It's not a prog metal album, but I wouldn't have minded a bit more elaborate arrangements. The voice, on the other hand, is overall quite positive: sufficient in the "clean" parts, works well in the shouted moments scattered here and there along the album, managing to be effective and emotional. One wonders why they didn't dare more in this direction.

Finally, the production. Perhaps here lies the answer to the last question posed. The album was released by Universal, so I suppose the money spent in recording - mixing - production, etc., wasn't lacking, having to support the album in the best way possible. In my opinion, the album was quite stifled from this point of view. It seems that the group is limited here and there: the sounds are not so powerful for a rock group, quite the opposite. The voice, besides being at a significantly higher volume than the rest, is especially highlighted when melodic. The arrangements, rather than enhancing the pace of the piece, merely underline it. In short, a fairly typical production for Italian _mainstream_. I believe this greatly limits the personality of an album that, otherwise, could have been perhaps even decent.

In short, maybe I was looking for something different, maybe I started with the wrong intentions, but in my opinion, "Tempi Bui" is an overall rather bland album, with some interesting ideas poorly exploited, which overall is listenable but still hasn't left much of an impression on me. The judgment could be sufficient, but given the almost deliberately unexpressed potential (here it seems like there's a lack of experience), I decide to take away that half point from the album.