Verdena
Live @ Villa Solaria, Sesto Fiorentino - 28.06.07

LA RECENSIONE

Verdena generally doesn't appeal to a certain audience. It might be that with that slightly shrill voice they are considered unlistenable above the age of 18, or it might be that the stereotype is always the same: "they are just like Nirvana", or it might be more than anything that they are out of fashion.

In the pantheon of the big names of alternative Italian music, they aren't there and probably never will be, especially now that it seems the common sense of critics tends to dismantle every new release of theirs more and more. My impression of them is of at least a courageous and honest band. I can't explain that wild tendency to not finish a hint any other way, to suffocate and crush every theme with obsessed digressions that are indeed a bit self-referential, but also stubbornly convinced in their constant going against any expectations. An attitude, in short, of "we couldn't care less," which for me alone is a merit worth 100.

And then there remain those slightly nightmarish obsessions, that being dreamy and hard at the same time, that softness of a post-adolescent in full Peter Pan syndrome, a sense of crossing a shadow line. A feeling shared by me, and honestly, I have yet to find someone who tells it better than they do. If that wasn't enough, the notes from the new live album seemed to me also intrinsically ironic. Of that bitter irony, but which nevertheless, as such, lightens the mood, reconsiders, and has the courage of self-analysis. In this guise, those quotes so used by detractors as arguments against them appeared under a new, somewhat mocking light, which made them even more likable to me compared to the horde of pompous and pretentious artists who in Italy seem the only way to quality music. I think it's already clear if it was the concert that induced me to reflect so much, but nevertheless, it was an incredibly (for my expectations) intense concert.

Not a note out of place, no holding back for two hours of performance, and that beautiful feeling you get when witnessing something exciting. Finally, I've understood what truly connects Verdena to Seattle rock. It's not about some notes or riffs, or the style of voice; these are superficial banalities that don't make sense. What links them to Seattle is being, like many of those bands, passionate and exciting. In their own small way, of course, but with more grace and even lyricism than what commonly is unwillingly attributed to them