Sonohra
Liberi da sempre

If you can't even make it halfway through an album and you'd rather fervently listen to Zero Assoluto, it's not exactly a good sign. Yet that's what happened to me with the debut album of the "breakthrough" group from the latest Sanremo Festival.

The Sonohra sound like an unlikable cross between Alvin and the Chipmunks and fingers on a chalkboard on the first day of school after summer vacation. Their saccharine and empty lyrics more vacuous than Monica Bellucci's gaze manage the difficult feat of making Moccia seem like a sort of modern-day Shakespeare. Opening the album is "Love Show", the new summer single that has the merit of being hated with disarming speed. Warning: if listened to while on the beach, it can cause sudden and inexplicable drowning. "You are a journey that has neither destination nor end... you are the middle-earth where I left my heart," they sing in their first big hit "L'amore". Tolkien has already turned in his grave and sent Sauron and Saruman on a punitive expedition to Sanremo. Meanwhile, the hobbits are seriously considering abandoning their middle-earth in protest. The video for the song is actually quite enjoyable (if you pretend the two Sonohra aren't ruining the scenes of the splendid Irish countryside and if you mute the TV audio).

"English Dance" contains very powerful lyrics, not suitable for the most sensitive souls: "I'll get high on music" is indeed one of the most aggressive lines ever heard in the history of rock 'n' roll. The string arrangements seem to be thrown in haphazardly, much like a guitar part trying to be aggressive but at best coming across as ridiculous. "Cinquemila mini mani" starts with a little piano piece and baroque strings once again randomly inserted, then an Oasis-style guitar makes you think that if you really must choose with a gun to your head, this surprisingly (given the chilling title) is the least bad track of the lot. Among the sappy ballads stands out for boredom the one that gives the title to the whole album. A complete IV drip, immediate hospitalization at the clinic of horrors. The two voices harmonizing manage to be more irritating than Paola & Chiara at their worst. The blend of their voices incites an unreasonable urge to end it all. "Salvami" is no better, with its "nainanaina nainana" trying to invent a new "tuturuturututtu" torment like Zero Assoluto, and with its nearly 6-minute duration, it would test even a saint's patience. The finale is absolutely delirious with epic-style The Edge guitars and strings aiming to be the new Sigur Ros (??!). The subsequent "Io e te" is (guess what?) another romantic ballad. In the middle, there's even a country guitar part that, rather than Johnny Cash, recalls the piece "Sei parte di me" by the already referenced (is it a coincidence?) Zero Assoluto. Almost needless to say, it's a truly awful song.

"So la donna che sei" has a funky tempo and the lyrics heat up to fit: "Il sesso come libera-liberazione," up to the free-freeing of an orgasmic chorus sung with a female soul voice that's not at all sexy. "L'immagine" has a "Street Spirit" guitar arpeggio and then more pompous strings and unintentionally ultra-kitschy lyrics. "Sono io" makes you think that if these two didn't have to sing together simultaneously, we listeners would suffer a little less, right? At a certain point, a disconcerting folk violin appears. The elements in this album seem to be mixed together to form a big messy hodgepodge without logical sense. The grand finale is entrusted to a Coldplay-style piano in "I Believe". The lyrics and voice make your skin crawl. "I believe, in universal love", they sing with all the breath in their lungs. The kind of epicness that brushes near Muse, but Muse, feeling brushed, shoo them away as if they were annoying gnats (no offense to gnats, of course).

Brothers like the Gallaghers who, upon learning about it, requested from the Manchester city council to no longer be brothers, the two Sonohra Luca and Diego Fainello cite among their musical influences Bryan Adams and Bon Jovi, but also flaunt a certain presence of blues and country in their work. Startling statements à la Donadoni, which find no evident confirmation even to the most attentive listening I forced myself into to complete this review professionally. It’s not enough to add ten seconds of pseudo-country guitar or pseudo-folk violins to fool the listener. The closest musical reference seems evidently to be more the soundtrack of "High School Musical" sung by Luca Dirisio.

Thus, the success of Sonohra is one of those inexplicable phenomena on par with will-o'-the-wisps or spontaneous combustion. They are not handsome. And their look is quite questionable and anonymous: too preppy to be emo but too nerdy to be preppy. The name they've chosen for themselves is truly horrendous. It can have so many meanings that it ends up having none at all. What is it? Do they think they appear smarter by using Latin? Sorry, guys: mission failed. Sonohra, if you know them you avoid them. If you don't know them, lucky you.

Ah, I almost forgot... Having struggled to the end of this hodgepodge of songs (already ripe for being sung by Maria De Filippi's Friends) I understood the ultimate meaning of the album title: finishing the CD indeed makes you feel truly "free forever." It’s a real "free-freeing!"

Now I'm off to enter the "SUPPORT SONOHRA AT TRL AND WIN A PHONE CALL WITH THEM" contest so if I win, I'll give these two a piece of my mind.