Negrita
9

How to honestly classify Negrita? A watered-down pop-rock band, or true rockers? Rock experimenters (given their South American influences) or a pop group playing at being rock?

Well, however you want to put it, they are people who know how to play, it's just that they have a limited vision of things, much like Ligabue. For them, the world is a race, motorbikes, wind, rebellion (real or presumed), mild doses of alternativism, provincial rock. This last definition, above all, in my opinion, characterizes them well. They are rockers who have lived on the outskirts of metropolises, who carry with them the scent of the provinces and the desire to keep escaping but in the end, it's so nice to return, and every time they find themselves in a metropolis they are like Pinocchio in the Land of Toys.

They demonstrate this with this album, "9", their ninth, in fact, where they revisit an old song titled "1989" in which they recall the fall of the wall, everything was okay in Berlin, we listened to Tom Waits and the Boss and we had a great time traveling, unlike in Arezzo and its province where nothing ever happens. Only to return and discover that even the provinces have their charm.

The album is well-played, ça va sans dire, and the first three songs are really nice. "Il gioco", the hit of the album; "Poser", fun, in which they say they love reality and not the virtual, that today we govern with selfies but they write to us from the land of elves and "Mondo politico" which has a truly fitting and striking pop-rock rhythm.

It would be miraculous if it weren't for the rest of the album unraveling a series of really uninteresting songs, again, well-played (see "Baby I'm in love", with its classy instrumental ending) but with lyrics that are really trivial, oscillating between love songs and the typical "I wish but I can't" of their repertoire.

"L'eutanasia del fine settimana" is saved, which humorously tells the overused ritual of wanting to get smashed at all costs every Saturday night. Not that it's something new, others have already told and sung about it, but here the lyrics are really successful, also because it intentionally makes a mess of it and ultimately provokes genuine amusement: "There's a long Indian line, a dazed guy comes out of the metro, he got white last night, yes, with a blowpipe!"

The usual half-baked album, like all of Negrita’s albums, with beautiful things mixed with less successful ones and many, too many fillers, see the finale in which none other than Shel Shapiro intervenes, with whom they had worked in theater some time ago. 3 stars, and peace.