Sick Tamburo
Un giorno nuovo

The album is from 2017, but being pleasantly surprised and having discovered that no one has paid attention to it (yay!), I decided to step in. Sick Tamburo have a vibe that to call "dark" is an understatement. In my opinion, songs like "La mia mano sola" or "Ho bisogno di parlarti" reflect their true nature, and if one resorts to the Prozac+ background, they must delve into an even darker darkness.

But it’s precisely for the following reason that I'm pleasantly surprised by "Un giorno nuovo": as the title track says, there is a turning point in the band's poetics, and it's of enormous significance. Gianmaria and Elisabetta show us a side of serene resignation not found in all their previous works. The album is built on a macro-dialogue, on one side Accusani sings of hope, and on the other Elisabetta sings of illness, cancer, a difficult theme of course (I don't know if it's a personal experience of theirs or of friends or family; from the articles I've read, I can't tell, and I don't want to say anything absurd. I limit myself to the theme of the album).

Starting from the end, "La fine della chemio" is the manifesto of the album: "your long hair, it will grow back in a color that's enchanting / and if it doesn't grow back, then, you know, I'll tell you, you're better off without it"; that is, life is beautiful, it's pure energy, we don't care about the pain because we have a duty to live, joyfully, despite everything. Pardon the quoting, but it's touching: "together, we'll laugh and not remember, we won't remember anything / we'll rebuild everything, but that's something you do even after a dream has shattered." And so we simply have to admire the strength of the message and examine our conscience if we live complaining about something not at least as serious as what Sick are talking about. The other track that praises humanity is "Un giorno nuovo," of course, another breath of hope and humanism. Strictly speaking, it's not real humanism but a new course of nihilism: after staring into the abyss, we have let it gaze into us and have withstood the confrontation; so we are ready to live looking ahead, no longer downwards. Without God, without beliefs, without thinking about anything other than what we are here, now ("hic et nunc," as intellectuals say, to satisfy them): "let's not waste words, let's enjoy what we have here, oh yes [...] let's open our eyes and realize how a smile takes us away / far from dreams and thoughts if we hold onto reality."

The counterweight to this idyllic existence is given by Elisabetta with "Dedicato a me"; the dark sound returns with her sharp voice; it's the ultimate expression of egoism that stems from the suffering of someone closing their gaze within themselves because the world no longer matters for someone in certain situations: "today is a special day / everything is dedicated to me [...] look at me from below [...] there's an animal inside that / will even eat me, I won't feel pain." Nothing else to add.

Then there are the sick loves narrated by Gianmaria between "Con prepotenza" and "Sei il mio demone" (in my opinion, the weakest link of the album), hypnotic, vibrant loves full of lust and authenticity. There's nostalgia for the past (Eva, where the hell are you?) but at the same time, there's a serene acceptance of the passing time in "Ad altro siamo pronti"; so much awareness that we’re also ready to pass on "Oltre la collina," always with deep serenity and acceptance of our life’s journey.

In short, it's a beautiful existential journey, and I'll tell you more: it’s not the song that dispels unease, it's the song that allows you to face it, to conquer it, and therefore it's much more than the carefree distraction each of us seeks to avoid thinking about things too difficult to approach. The music is lighter, decidedly turning toward pop, but that's perfectly fine because everything is authentic; there's little of the distorted, metallic peaks of previous works. Sick Tamburo has shown everyone how simplicity is the key to everything. I'll finish by saying that the magnetism provoked by Gianmaria's voice is something difficult to forget; it gets inside and never leaves (at least for me).