Neoismo
Atmosfera nel cubo

Images of cars stopped waiting at the traffic light are projected in my eyes, lights flashing that regulate the lives of those who wait... imposing their rhythms... yet, on closer inspection, they are all closed in their micro-universe... in their cube... and so am I! So I turn my attention away from the window of my balcony and look around... my room is a cube that contains me and in which my existence lies. It would take little to break this mere prison, just open a window... yet it is in this cube that my experience makes sense and in it my life comes together. You cannot escape the cube because every facet of it is the very essence of my living: "one, no one, and one hundred thousand"!

Why review an emerging Italian band? Why write about Neoismo? Because they try, in their own way, to meditate on this strange game of matryoshka dolls! And so here comes this "Atmosphere in the Cube," an album that alternates pure class and enchantment with lighthearted moments... because ultimately, our quest is also "frivolity."
In circulation for about 10 years in the Roman underground (they started at 20!) Neoismo approaches the music market with a compilation album of 9 years of activity! Yet the album follows a logical thread, an inner quest that pushes towards a personal search for the self... often approached in a raw but convincing manner. Thus, the best Cure cover band in Rome blends electronics, wave, orchestral, prog, Battiato, and the Cure themselves into a single solution, managing to write pieces that would make the best Battiato pale in comparison.
The journey begins with "terraferma," a rather easy and unassuming piece, almost pop. Then the music starts to climb with "Nova," where the influences of The Cure begin to be felt. The crescendo of the album triggers the IMMENSE "Cosmozen" where Flavio D.'s keyboards rise supreme along with Emiliano Sera's voice imitating Battiato... incredible, he sounds just like him!! The piece is, in my opinion, the best Italian dark-wave song... orchestrations with unlikely chords, accordions, and reflective drums... nuanced guitars and effects everywhere create a piece to listen to at all costs. Then comes "no more" of a more classical rock matrix. "Betelgeuse" takes shape in an atmosphere of pure sensuality... intimate but sensual... beautiful.
The album gets more aggressive and in "sequences" it takes on a decidedly SPECTACULAR wave-prog-rock twist! Everything revolves vortex-like on the keyboards of the exceptional Flavio D. that animates Neoismo and ferries them into a piece of rare beauty. "Sulla spiaggia" follows the sequences discourse and the sound takes a decidedly wave-prog twist! Fantastic. The Cure returns with "Hakuin" where the piece picks up spaciousness... a tribute to man's thirst for knowledge. "Fuori pioveva" sounds very Cure in a more pop version... but fascinating! "Free" follows, definitely out of tune and not very interesting.
At this point, two masterpieces arrive, "Neptune" and "25th hour"... that would fit well in the Cure's disintegration! BEAUTIFUL... BEAUTIFUL. "Francesco Malcom" flows by without wound but with little inspiration leaving room for "Calma della sera" which closes the album in a dreamlike atmosphere of inner reflection. AMAZING!
The journey in the cube thus ends with an at times "epic" album produced by a group of young people with passion to spare... I return to the window of my balcony, my lips curl into a smile at the thought that wherever you go the cube is inevitably our traveling companion!

Post Scriptum: the album is ENTIRELY DOWNLOADABLE FOR FREE from the band's website along with their first experiments (also very interesting)... the advice is to at least listen to the best tracks! As far as I am concerned, I thank those who, for better or worse, have made me dream and, in their small way, enriched me.