Subsonica
L'Eclissi

Fifth studio album since 1997 for the band from Turin which, I must admit, I have never fully appreciated. In short, I've never been a "fan" of theirs, although I've always managed to extract at least 2 pieces to my liking from each of their albums. I think my favorite until today was "Amorematico" from 2002.

In the early days of their career, I always saw them overshadowed by the Monza-based Bluvertigo, certainly much more virtuosic from a technical point of view and endowed with greater creative verve. The Subsonica, honest musicians without peaks of excellence, have never managed to stand out as truly alternative in my opinion. However, they had the merit of being able to give voice to a "Piedmontese mood" that created a real movement of thought, a musical genre copied by many other minor bands from Turin and beyond, and to describe the malaise of the "Savoy suburbs."

This new album "Eclissi" opens with "Veleno." A track where the synths sound a bit too much (hopefully intentionally) like the sounds of Trent Reznor's last two albums. There's a lot of Nine Inch Nails swirling around at the start of this album as a general inspiration. An ambitious intro track, with a basic construction different from the usual Subsonica sound, and which immediately creates a clear watershed from the previous album "Terrestre". The "nouvelle vague" electronic at the expense of guitars is even clearer with the second track "Ali Scure," a bit too slow and sad to be placed at the beginning of the CD in my opinion. It already smells of closing dance. The third track, "La Glaciazione" is also the first single. Certainly, it is the most "commercial" track of the album, very catchy and singable, with finally a slightly more complex text than the first 2 songs. It's not bad, although a little predictable, and it's technically elevated by the rhythm change at 3:19 that corrects an otherwise too banal uniformity of the song.

Track No. 4 "L'ultima Risposta" is, in my opinion without a doubt, the most beautiful of the album. It's a perfect mix of rock and electronica, with committed and very deep lyrics, a good rhythm section, and a nice guitar riff. In short, a successful and complete track. "Il Centro Della Fiamma" is a very "maranza" piece. It seems like it came out of a Friday night at "Celebrità," late '90s with some extra chemicals in the body, so to speak. It's a song that "throws you off a bit," much closer to the parallel project "Motel Connection" than to Subsonica's style. The dominating electronics throughout the album are of decent technical quality, excellent in sound quality on a CD very well mixed and carefully recorded, but born outdated. If the intent is to get closer to the sacred monsters of electronics, we are still very far from it. It's advised to study the sounds of Trentemoller&C. well to keep up with the times. On the whole, track No. 5 is avoidable even though I admit it makes you dance. No. 6 "Nei Nostri Luoghi", ends the first half of the album, which I believe is deliberately much more beautiful and thought out than the second, which instead contains filler tracks dedicated to fans of the old albums. A song with the classic Subsonica-style refrain, with an appreciable medium-slow rhythm.

"Quattrodieci" recalls the tracks from the early '90s, fast but a bit cliché both in melody and sounds. "Piombo" follows the script of the previous one, slipping away without particular emotions. "Alta Voracità" instead resumes the almost reggae passages already heard on "Amorematico," picking up the sounds from an underground metropolitan venue. "Alibi" is an ambitious track that, however, fails to overcome the mediocrity of this second half of the album. A slow filled with very deep bass and a very honeyed voice, which, however, tires after 1 minute of listening. "Canenero" always brings back to the '90s sounds as does the closing track "Stagno" (over 14 minutes). The closing track is, in my opinion, a bit of a mirror of this album. It seems that these guys want to break away from the very adolescent sounds of the first albums to move towards more adult and committed music. But they haven't fully succeeded yet. The intent is appreciable but, as often happens, when you want to save the relationship with old fans and try to gain new ones, you risk losing both. In short, they lacked the courage to the very end but the path taken is the right one.

Overall it is an album without praise or blame but fully adequate, containing only (as usual) 2 pearls: "La Glaciazione" and "L'ultima Risposta."