Negramaro
La Finestra

They're back. Two years after the green rabbit with a thousand funny faces, here is a "Window" wide open on the new world of Negramaro. Announced with great fanfare, with a fair amount of media hype (especially on the web), yesterday saw the light of the new work of the Salento group. Attractive cover that looks almost like a dawn in Otranto and a rich tracklist, a good 14 tracks for over an hour of total duration. Let's see them.  The beginning "La distrazione" is pretentious. Too many guitars, too many riffs, too much "technique", too much ostentation, which ends up imitating hard rock and roll without having the title or the ability for it. Never, as in this opening piece, do you feel the imprint of the acclaimed Caselli&Rustici duo and the choice (who knows how well made) to fly all the way to Los Angeles to record this work. Undoubtedly, it is in tracks like "La distrazione" that you find the formal refinement that is sometimes used to conceal a certain poverty of ideas, and this is certainly a shame, since the Negrii, despite what their detractors, who are quite zealous, say, have shown some originality in the past, at least until a certain moment in their career. In the ironic and somewhat self-celebratory "Giuliano poi sta male", you can detect small traces of the carefree and cheeky Blur of "The great escape", in the almost britpop drums and the singsong chorus, but it still doesn't take off. The third track is the single, "Parlami d'amore". I don't recall who said that to create a summer hit, you must necessarily mention a typical summer element in the lyrics, like sand, the sea, the sun. If there is at least one of these elements, not to mention all three, the victory at the Festivalbar is served on a silver platter. The Negrii are no fools, and it shows from the song's intro: "Coprimi la testa con la sabbia sotto il sole quando pensi che sian troppe le parole". As if to say, we are nominating ourselves to annoy you endlessly like two years ago and the mark of that summer that seemed never to end. From the frequency of programming in our airplay, I would say they are on the right track. As for the song, it is a nursery rhyme of rhymed verses set on a good pop-rock base with all-too-easy appeal to the Italian masses.  In my opinion, the strong point of Negramaro's repertoire has always been the ballads. It is in the occasion of slower pieces, in fact, that Giuliano Sangiorgi displays with more confidence his vocal peculiarities and his appreciable multi-instrumental skills (nothing extraordinary, let's be clear) while also giving the right emphasis to often bitter, but "refined" lyrics just enough, romantic without being cloying. Exactly what happens in track 4, "Un passo indietro", with a piano opening and Sangiorgi full vocal with all his now-considered "typical" highs and lows. The next "L'immenso", recalls "Mentre tutto scorre", as it does not seem to differ in style from their first big nationwide success. The surprise is the title track, placed roughly halfway through, which sounds like a fairly clear reference to the "experimental" sounds of their first self-titled work now belonging to another era. Certainly, sweetened to make it more appealing to chart peaks, but in "La finestra" the traces left by pieces like "Solo" are all too clearly understood, both in sound and lyrics. Another ballad, and we reach the peak of the entire work, with "Quel posto che non c'è". In the style of "Solo 3 min", a piece with voice, piano, and violin with a troubled text that Giuliano's voice interprets with the right intensity.  Likely the next single, it turns out to be a classic "atmosphere" piece. "Neanche il mare", however, does not convince. Again, as in the opening track, too much "pomp" in form impoverishes the intentions of a piece that certainly would have benefited from a less complicated arrangement. The text too ends up somewhere between silly and cryptic; I quote "e se anche il cielo non sa aspettare a lui dirò che neanche il mare sa di avere grandezza uguale". Bah, you listen while remaining puzzled. The general impression is that Negramaro, perhaps out of fear of being accused of possible plagiarisms or various copies, starting from the assumption that nowadays it is difficult to create something original, have preferred to "fold" into the comfort of self-citation, so "E ruberò la luna" is located between "Nuvole e lenzuola" and "Parlami d'amore", with the prestigious participation of the Accademia di Santa Cecilia Choir (but was it needed?) to create that difference which however fails to be notable. In "Cade la pioggia" we even have a duet, none other than with the author of the piece, Lorenzone "former trickster" Jovanotti, increasingly our Bono Vox. The duet is actually more strictly a featuring, since Jova limits himself to reciting a verse in a sort of rap at the end ("La mia pelle è carta bianca per il tuo racconto, scrivi tu la fine, io sono pronto"): a sweet ballad in which Sangiorgi can let loose his vocal cords.  To balance it out, but once again with too many pretenses, "Via le mani dagli occhi", which can be comfortably skipped as at this point of the CD the impression of "already heard" is very strong. Again, "Una volta tanto (Canzone per me)" slows the pace and raises the tone a little, which is immediately lowered again with "Tu ricordati di me". Ultimately, this CD presents itself in an ambivalent manner, presenting decent ideas and appreciable insights, but also heavy drawbacks. The lively tracks are too "over-arranged", it's clear that Rustici has overdone it in post-production with the result that it's as if from track 1 to 13 only one long pop-rock piece was recorded, interspersed with some more melodic moments, so similar are the songs. Self-citation until the end, with the last "E' così" matching "Solo per te", similar to the point of also having this the "hidden track" (but you leave it hidden, that this one, unlike the small jazzy session of "Mentre tutto scorre" seems to be an unhearable jumble of indistinct noises).  In the end, a work that is listened to quite smoothly, but also leaves heavy questions on the table. First of all the duration: 14 tracks, moreover very similar to each other, are really too many and end up being tiring. The second and more serious flaw is the absolute lack of innovation, if not negative. The much-heralded American expedition only resulted in burdening the arrangements, leveling the sound, making the "Negamaro style" almost carbon paper to infinitely duplicate similar note combinations. The only fully hit target is to make this "La finestra" the work of confirmation. To the question: "how can one replicate the success of a previous multi-platinum and multi-award-winning album?" The answer: by making one exactly the same. Obvious.  Passed with reservation, they are smart but don't apply themselves; they should return next time without copying from last year's themes.