Rose Rovine e Amanti
Demian

Does neo-folk exist in Italy?

No, but there are the Rose Rovine e Amanti.

The project was born in 2002 at the hands of the mastermind Damiano Mercuri and just these days it reaches the milestone of the third album ("Giorni di Splendore e Sole"), after gaining some visibility in the sector thanks to a long apprenticeship and several publications: interesting EPs, minis, splits with interesting people (notably the one in the company of Sol Invictus and Andrew King) and two full-lengths, "Rituale Romanum" (2006) and "Demian" (2009), of which it seems there is much good to be said and about which I am about to talk today myself.

Before starting the analysis, however, a necessary premise must be made: I don't like albums sung half in one language and half in another; and I don't like albums sung in Italian where the words are not clearly understood. "Demian," unfortunately, embodies both of these aspects, making it impossible for me to fully enjoy it.

A pity, because the proposal was interesting and the songs were there, all things considered. According to Mercuri himself, "Rose Rovine e Amanti combines 'Italian neofolk' with a touch of sacral neoclassicism, all mixed with good old smoky European cabaret". Because at least one thing Rose Rovine e Amanti have understood: that Italians are not English or Germans, that Italians are slackers, so it's pointless to give up the warm Mediterranean charm and retrace the rigorous paths of European colleagues in a scholastic way. With many resemblances to what has been accomplished in recent years by the ever-Italian Spiritual Front, Rose Rovine e Amanti in "Demian" combine neo-folk and tavern moods, atmospheres that directly evoke the tradition of Italian, French, and German cabaret.

Mercuri explained at the album's release: I've already done acoustic neo-folk, now I need more energy and more colors in the arrangements. So in "Demian," there is also rock, there are even electric guitars and vocal interpretations that in the meantime have matured: in short, everything contributes to making Rose Rovine e Amanti's proposal a mature, fresh, personal one, detached from many of the clichés that the genre imposes. All very interesting, no doubt, but for me - I repeat - it remains a questionable stylistic choice to adopt the English language in many parts (especially when talking about an Italian group, devoted to a genre like neo-folk, which by its nature is against the massification of globalization, of which the English language is certainly an expression). A clumsy English, moreover, which is best left unmentioned, placed next to parts in Italian that, for mixing reasons, are not always intelligible, and when they are, alas, do not deliver us the feeling that Mercuri is an excellent lyricist.

It is difficult, really difficult, for this work to be able to please me in full.

A pity, because the proposal was interesting and the songs were there, all the more so: the listening flows, it is brief (a little over forty minutes), well-articulated and balanced between poignant ballads and rougher moments. Very little of the classic, ethnic, or ritual; the references to the guardians of the genre are quite vague (Death in June, for certain guitar arpeggios; Sol Invictus, for the troubadour-like settings): Mercuri's folk is sunny and catchy, Mercuri could be one of the many singer-songwriters infesting our country if it weren't for the message he intends to convey through his music. Namely:

- Rose: symbol of beauty, transience, and Europe;

- Rovine: decay of the modern world, long live tradition;

- Amanti: love and honor, passion and pain.

What a drag, huh? It is therefore the themes treated, more than the music itself, that reconnect Rose Rovine e Amanti's proposal to the neo-folk strand, of which Mercuri does not deny affiliation: a fervent and practicing Catholic, Mercuri stands in defense of the deepest values ​​of Christianity, questioned by the "dictatorship of relativism". You will have understood that this album cannot really please me thoroughly.

But if I happen to listen to it, it's because it flows. Right from the opening "Il Gatto Osserva" one can glimpse Mercuri's considerable technical qualities on the guitar (a conservatory graduate), but it's obvious, on this first piece more than ever, the little attention paid to enhancing the vocal parts: the text, which features both Italian and English verses, is not always comprehensible. "Rose Rovine e Amanti" is instead a nice ballad (which in the martial refrain calls to mind Faber), embellished by the vocal incursions of Noemi York and the violin of Giuseppe Lorenzoni, collaborators we will find again (along with Daniele Befanucci's drums and Pietro Marinelli's piano) throughout the album, for the rest played and interpreted by Mercuri himself (in addition to voice and guitar, also bass, keyboards, mandolin, and hand percussion). The title track (entirely in English) opens with a very Death in June passage and features the first electric roars of the album: solid percussion base, urgent violin, a set of things that in the moment is reminiscent of Sieben's folk/rock brand.

"Il Grande Tradimento" opens with a quote from the great maestro Leonard Cohen (whose spirit will hover throughout the album), another acoustic ballad, in which electricity peers in again: however, the combination "Christian creed/rock" smells too much of boy-scout to me, an impression this, which if not tamed risks prejudicing the evaluation of the entire work, given that on this binomial many of the following songs are built. "From Desperation to Victory" seems plucked from "Armageddon Gigolò" by Spiritual Front and with its western suggestions, with its acid electric counterpoints, it is the best example of how the music of Rose Rovine e Amanti knows how to renew itself by embracing new styles. "The End of this World" continues on the same wavelength: broken guitar phrasing, a dive bar jam session, snickers in the background, texts that still fail to convince (this time in the crosshairs is Power, attacked in its hypocrisy, a jab from which not even the Church saves itself).

The texts, then. A succession of slogans and clichés, worn images well present in the collective imagination, anti-system rhetoric mixed with mocking parish invocations: this is what the lyrics of this album offer. Sense of the Sacred: where is the sense of the Sacred? There is not a single phrase that knows how to give me an emotion, a jolt, an expression that smells a minimum of transcendence. Ethics, finally: but I say (strictly personal opinion), is it possible that it is necessary, at all costs, to have a Faith - an already canonized faith, at that - to not steal, kill, betray, and lie, and to maintain a conduct that is at least ethically dignified?

Let's return then to the music: "Paura del Demonio," the most powerful track on the album, dresses in metal in the second half, due to the use of electric guitars (beautiful solo, by the way), the drumming, the structured voices which have something of our dark/progressive, but probably the effect is unintentional. "Mille Serpi" offers Mercuri's most theatrical vocal performance, and if we want to be kind, we could say he vaguely recalls David Tibet in his moments of greater emphasis: better here than elsewhere, after all, and the track gives some thrills overall. "Noi Ritorneremo," with a nice violin standing out, is another ballad that doesn't rise above the average, while the closing is entrusted to "Ave Maria," which brings up none other than the Madonna. Nothing more than a holy card, I add: as for the aforementioned sense of the Sacred, not even a glimpse. Besides the fact that words like Mary and Joseph, Christ and the Almighty Father, fit well in the mouth of only De André; and that De André himself remains to this day the holder of the only apocalyptic folk track conceived on Italian soil ("Fragile Amico").

Someone might also like this "Demian," the honesty, the freedom of movement that the artist finds in the expressive medium of apocalyptic folk will certainly be appreciated, but crying out for a miracle is decidedly misplaced. Mercuri could have been one among the many cheap singer-songwriters of this country, but Our Man chooses the niche: yet honesty, dedication, ambition, good intentions, without a genuine intellectual, spiritual, artistic depth, evidently are not enough to elevate Rose Rovine e Amanti beyond the ranks of mediocrity. Unless, of course, one wants at all costs to search for a champion of apocalyptic folk in our country.

Which is a country for old men. And certainly not a country for apocalyptic folk.