PGR
D'Anime e D'Animali

Francesco Magnelli and Ginevra Di Marco have left the group.

Before the last breakup, PGR had an album ready, finished, and honed. And then everything had to be erased, everything had to be redone. The Tabula Rasa that manifests again, just like a destiny that smiles gently but never abandons. But like the last time, a new energy bursts forth, along with the desire to put everything back into play to sing, play, and work, with Peter Walsh as the new producer and the magnificent Real World studios of Peter Gabriel as the place to peacefully blend.

"We," says Giovanni Lindo Ferretti, "used to create sophisticated contemporary music, played over an amazing female voice and a piano. Without them, what should we do? A second-rate PGR? Not even an option." And here they are, back to raw sounds, screaming guitars, drums in the foreground, and Giovanni Lindo Ferretti finally singing again, modulating his voice, for a refined and mature punk full of energy.

The first track is the tale of an evening in a tavern, of a concert that never happened because of the pouring rain that commands, of the humid and sweaty crowd, crammed and drunk. A Hammond organ, relic of the past, draws the ritual of arms, dance, and loves, the same sound that frightens pagan gods, that underscores Giovanni's voice which warmly recalls that God lives in that divine atom embedded in the heart of every human, a gnostic law par excellence that prepares for the first real shock. The second track starts and a shiver runs down the spine to the notes of Tamurriata Nera. But who speaks in Neapolitan? Whose voice is that? "The abomination blooms in pretended innocence" and it is the ghost of Fabrizio de André that appears, takes over Ferretti's throat, and leaves you with a moment of vertigo before the raw and violent guitars unleash for Giovanni's found angry scream " A pure heart and a straight dick are worth more than any weak thought----sweet soul that among cotton balls set your feet on the ground you will feel an electroshock----at least let it be healthy to screw, a human animal act."

Just a moment to let go and breathe, something of Ko de Mondo resonates in Orfani e Vedove, but it is always the words that envelop, irriverent texts, shameless, harsh and full of ancient wisdom "I was a monk, a warrior, a Cathar heretic, an outlaw, I lived off cattle theft---freedom a necessary danger in truth" and the bass that pulsates and pushes in the oriental callings of the accompanying string quartet. Until a love-stricken Giovanni surrenders to a night of body and feelings in You and I from "the archaic animal man---here my hands move on you in paths, design arabesques, trace diagonals", while Peter Walsh's keyboards sway in the love game that continues in Me and You "Through the flesh, I touch, eternal moment, the soul catches fire, begins to vibrate, eagerly drinks of the pleasure of finiteness and pain---divine project, envy of the Gods the man". The organ reclaims dominance in S'Ostina and the words keep hammering the psyche "carnal envelope overflowing with moods, scent of the eternal that springs from the abyss--- who are you beautiful as the sun, who are you more beautiful than the moon, looking at you I know the fortune that the Gods would want for themselves". Then the last tribute to De André in PGGGR "Piero does not resist, he does not go to war, he will die anyway in a field of wheat, not a rose, not a tulip" and again the deep, scratchy, reciting voice concludes in

It Is Possible
and it seems to me I return
in a dream I know
that I cross with fear
that leaves me only rage

I want to go
to walk on mountains
be better
study, work

...a dream I know
that I've crossed
that I despise
and that never ends

I have to leave
I want to breathe, scream at the gallop
do myself good, do myself harm.

I am breathless. The record is over. I press play and dive in again.