Novembre
Arte Novecento

Today I feel different. I sense something gripping my soul, I feel it under my skin, I see my life passing before me, outside the window on a November evening, with a storm that instills fear. The sky is gray, dark, and paranoid, the rain falls incessantly and ever harder, and its crashing echoes in my head while I can't take my eyes off the city before me, which almost seems to partake in a divine cry. Everything is still, motionless. "Arte Novecento" is in the player... and almost driven by an intrinsic force I can't control, I press the play button... I know this will mean hurting myself, that the extreme union with the notes of that album and the feelings that grieving sky evokes in me can be lethal, and I risk falling into an emotional tunnel with no way out... But this is the only true solution, the exorcism of my inner negativity. I tremble when the first notes of "Pioggia... January Tunes" make their way into my ears under that sad crashing, visions cloud my brain, I see a fairy dancing with the rain caressing her skin... "Lights from behind infinite drops, from a timeless track a train departs for the stars...". And the hairs on my back turn to stalactites as I feel completely enveloped by those electric guitars.

Then the slow charge of "Homecoming" overwhelms me, where Giuseppe Orlando manages to transition directly from atmospheric rhythms to fast but simultaneously subtle and subdued death accelerations... "Ride those notes again and all that sand, you'll find the same desire to spread our wings on this arid land... Same dark sky of desperate clouds above our withered heads". The arpeggio of "Remorse" awakens me, I feel new sensations coursing through me... The first part of the song is enveloping and dense with a negative atmosphere that seems to prepare for an explosion when the drums powerfully enter, accompanying us to the second part of the song, instrumental, where two guitars harmoniously cross paths, and the bass seems to stumble amid their notes... Remorse is the dominant feeling in this track, Carmelo Orlando's voice, at a certain point, seems to want to climb over the sky to seek forgiveness... "Finding nothing to quell the pain that came to wash away my faults... We've lost the last glimmers we could find in this quagmire". The soul of Depeche Mode dominates in the cover of "Stripped," and it feels like seeing Martin Gore wielding an electric guitar while trying to play heavy metal. My soul thanks when it hears the beginning of "Worn Carillon," the atmosphere is more serene and bright, and I can take a breath, yet it’s only an illusion... Soon negativity will loom here too, when the bass takes over, followed by a tyrannical guitar accompanying Carmelo Orlando's throat in a confession to God of his sensations... "A fire of pain leaves me kneeling among the flames, your weary silence paints my horizons rain-colored, take my last wishes with you, give me one more minute for the last prayer". The water I hear flowing in "A Memory" seems to make its way into my ears and deep into my heart, and the riff becomes increasingly aggressive... the memory is what stimulates this song, the memory "of mute days"... the memory "of you wandering through the empty rooms of what once was our paradise...". I no longer know what to say to describe the nursery rhyme, the little poem for children: "Nursery Rhyme". A harmonious arpeggio, an acoustic guitar that insinuates itself within me, and a chilling chorus before the electric guitar enters... And I would never have expected that calm yet aggressive finale, introduced by tribal rhythms and flowing into the purest and most enveloping melody. This is the most melodic song of Arte Novecento, it is pure poetry distilled and set to music... "We, in this blowing of time, lose our dreams like trees give their leaves to the earth...". No faltering with the instrumental episode of "Photograph," it's time for "Will." Once again an arpeggio, actually, two overlapping arpeggios, notes that slide like tears, where the second-choice production becomes even clearer and thus more evocative and sincere. Carmelo Orlando's voice is an ancestral call, which, before succumbing to the pure violence of the guitar and unfettered drums, is riddled with unanswered questions it seems to want to succumb to... "Why do I feel the need to lose myself in the depths of your eyes?... What divides our lips from the longed-for endless kiss?... What is this void that unites your gray sky to mine?"...

And we've arrived at "Carnival." It's the total rejection of the world that closes Arte Novecento. The rejection and disinterest in what cannot reflect the inner torment, drowning it in banality, superficiality, hypocrisy. I no longer have the strength to describe this last, wonderful song, chiaroscuro alternation of tight and delicate rhythms, of blind violence and pure melody, an intense and gray metallic panorama of the human soul.
"O rain, take me away from this place devoid of dreams..." asks Carnival. If for her rain won’t make it, for you this masterpiece will suffice.