Santo Niente
Sei na ru mo'no wa na'i

LA RECENSIONE

After the strong debut in 1995, sarcastically titled “Life is Easy”, Umberto Palazzo returned to the scene two years later with what was meant to be his breakthrough album, but its relative lack of success – along with disagreements with CPI – instead drove its creator into a retreat from which he emerged a couple of years ago, reaffirming his charisma within an asphyxiated Italian scene.
By further sharpening the cutting edges of the quartet, now more cohesive and compact as the new name suggests, the former member of Allison Run and Massimo Volume forged with "Sei na ru mo'no wa na'i" (Santo Niente in Japanese) a work that rivals the most celebrated fruits of that season of Italian rock, like “Catartica” or “Hai paura del buio?” : harsh, dramatic without being pathetic, mature.

Chef Palazzo’s sonic recipe was for refined palates: a metallic skeleton of abrasive USA sounds (Melvins, Fugazi, Sonic Youth, Jesus Lizard), reinterpreted through the prism of 70s kitsch decadence (Faust’o) and a certain Mediterranean sensuality, which manifested mostly in lively and viscous lyrics of ordinary metropolitan desolation, but also with disconcerting acoustic reverberations that adorned the rugged shell of tracks like “Junkie” or the intricate “Divora”.
There are plenty of moments that sound exciting even now, stripped of the urgency of the last decade. “Maelstrom”, for example: a chaotic sound collage in “Downward Spiral” style, sustained by a pulsating bass that explodes into a ruthless guitar refrain branded Seattle. “Elettricità”, a murky noise ride with a drawn-out narration that recalls the times of the collaboration with Clementi, then closing the album splendidly with the alternation between hypnotic silences and derailing guitar assaults in “Quando?”, “Fiction”, and the masterpiece “Angelo Nero”, the perfect symbiosis of the two souls of the group, the wilder one and the more intellectual one.
However, the heart of the album lies in those moments where claustrophobic noise perfection and an anthemic Cobain-esque surge interpenetrate (the famous “È aria”, the languid “Pornostar”: both of which were delivered in seismic live versions by Santo Niente in those years), or in the nervous title track, split in two by agonizing guitars reminiscent of the Afghan Whigs of “Congregation” while Palazzo enigmatically declares “We are all Madame Bovary”.
Among the grooves of “Life is Easy”, Umberto sang: “I apologize, I wanted to entertain you”: but we still enjoy listening to his records.

It is not sea that dissolves tendons and thoughts
It is not rain that leaves the asphalt gleaming
It is not the flame of a new and eternal passion
It is not a flight to hell via Berlin
 It is air