Stop?
Del mio respiro

Can rock become literature? Listening to the second work of the Modenese band Stop? one would decidedly say yes.

A different approach compared to "Persi" their first work, a good debut album by the band. From the first album remains the formal balance that perfectly supports the most experimental deviations and the technical sophistication both musical and vocal never flaunted but always at the service of overall rendering and expressiveness.

"Del mio respiro" presents itself as a true concept album, where each track demands the listening of the next one, just like when reading a substantial literary work. The themes tackled, depression and suicide, are almost explicitly declared. The manifestations of depression emerge sharply: guilt, boredom, inability to communicate, fear, changes in perception, lack of true feelings. What surprises and captivates are the questions one must ask while listening to this intriguing work. Who took their life? A friend, a partner, or the author themselves in a symbolic suicide? Or perhaps it is the loss of something important that triggers a mourning reaction and its subsequent elaboration is in turn a death-rebirth? or all these things together? The viewpoints alternate numerous times in a sort of anguished dialogue where, however, there are never productive exchanges of views but only solitary musings on existence and pain.

The result is excellent. You are drawn into a vortex of questions to which you actively try to answer, making each listening intriguing and different from the last. I will not reveal my interpretation but conclude by quoting Italo Calvino: "You haven't understood an author until you've asked at least a thousand questions about them." I don't know if I've hit the mark, but I assure you I have truly questioned myself a lot about this work.

So yes. Rock sometimes becomes literature.