Punkreas
Paranoia e potere

THE REVIEW

As a teenager, I was 13 years old when I got into punk music after spending years (and I'm not ashamed to say it, since they shaped my musical culture) listening to all the commercial phenomena that TV was pushing (Spice Girls, Take That, Backstreet Boys, but also Ligabue, Alanis Morrissette, Daft Punk). The first so-called "turning point" bands I listened to were Punkreas and NOFX. Now, with that, I don't intend to do a revival of the past, but I just want to say that, now, with the passing of the years (I'm 20 now), I still appreciate this sincere album (unlike the later albums by Punkreas, fabricated in the scent of the god of money) that reflects a certain type of ideology (whether right or wrong) and a certain type of consistency. A fundamental thing, if you want to make music that impacts the political-social sphere, is consistency.

Punkreas today are a caricature of themselves. They are terribly fake (so much so that one of their CDs, I think the penultimate one, is called "Falso"), scheming, and therefore not very credible. But the same goes for 99 Posse, MCR, and all the other groups or singers who, under the guise of ideological-social issues, earn money upon money. At the time of "Paranoia e potere," Punkreas were not yet well-known, a post-teen band that, with this album, started producing songs with targeted phrases ("Disonora lo Stato e brucia la bandiera" in "Tutti in pista" or "Macabra festa in quel dell'arena di Spagna, sadismo e perversione e un cumulo di grida, c'è anche il re seduto insieme alla sua cagna, si apprestano a guardare ciò che chiamano corrida"), strong, preaching about impossible, inhuman, atrocious situations but also talking about politics, a medieval church, history, even if sometimes in a superficial way.
Musically, in "Paranoia e potere" (but also in the following albums), they are not much. They are raw, just as punk tradition demands, but they are effective, direct, never banal. They make fun music that you can think about, but also stage dive to, which was the spirit of the band. However, everything has changed now. Punkreas are beginning to participate in television shows on major (and imposing) music channels, aligning themselves with the musical standard that is fashionable at the moment, that is, punk-pop, and to see them live now, you have to pay from 13 to 17 euros (while before they mostly played for free or, if there was a fee, it was minimal).

To conclude, the real Punkreas are the ones from "Paranoia e potere" and the previous albums. Those guys who fought for their idea of the world (even if, in my opinion, wrong) and played and made music according to this idea of theirs (just like the early 99 Posse, whom I criticize so much). Today, they are nothing more than thirty-somethings making luxury package punk for pseudo-rebel kids.