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Rating: Verdena, difficult to explain but now I find the name inappropriate, still rock, youthful moreover, as if many things had stopped at the end of the '90s, when our guys were still teenagers.
This album is no longer rock either, I would say that rock-pop would be a pretty happy and meaningful definition compared to their past albums. A rather impure and heterogeneous mix between pop attitude, of easy melodic inventiveness, and rock attitude, of perverse obsessiveness.
The non-existent will to find a common thread in the writing of the pieces is evident and negative for many, but it has always been a strength of Verdena who continue to churn out (very slowly actually) stylistically different albums. This time the mechanism has been used on a short length, within the same double album we find a continuous variation of musical intentions, ranging from melodic ballads, although full of acid and bizarre sounds that highlight the now consolidated ability in production, to psycho-rock pieces, furiously angry, where the drums are let loose, although it remains magnificently oblique.
The album is full of happy episodes, in the first disc "Miglioramento" recalls the tones of "Il Suicidio dei Samurai", perhaps focused with greater completeness. "Mi Coltivo " and "Lui Gareggia" constitute a crushing immersion into the desperate sounds of "Requiem".
The second disc is an exciting mix of pop melodies and heavy shards, at times stoner, memories of the recent past of the trio, sometimes seasoned with electronic experiments. Radiant sunny days titled "Nuova Luce" and "Grattacielo" are interspersed with boozy nights to be forgotten ("Badea Blues" "Sul Ciglio"); and still stubborn acoustic songs that talk about love with an unusual frankness for the group ("Love matters, it seemed useless, until yesterday") and with a nonchalance owing to many masters from across the ocean or sleeve.
The album closes with an opening: "Lei Disse (Un Mondo del Tutto Differente)", it can excite, perhaps more than many things written and paths attempted, then deepened or abandoned, by the band. It's not the first time the tail is left to a high-level piece. They could, they had the physique, and they made the revolution.
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Other reviews
By Giò.Amoroso
Verdena is the Italian band I admire the most because I find in them a creative approach that few have.
An album destined to become a milestone of rock made in Italy, which definitively distances them from their beginnings.
By Darkeve
"They are not songs, they are demons. Madness. The desire to burst out of hell, or heaven, with one’s monsters."
"Everything sounds and everything is played: guitars, basses, percussion, mellotron, rhodes, synths, accordions, xylophones, djambé, violins, kazoo... Everything seems to be where it should be, yet nothing is in its place."
By marypolly
"A truly beautiful record is one that immerses you in a climax of full satisfaction from beginning to end, and this is not the case."
"The album is there, and it truly is beautiful, but it’s hidden. You just have to enjoy finding it."
By zaireeka
I have in my hands an extremely cultured piece of work, original in the assimilation of all its references, never banal, intricate, and at the same time enjoyable.
The saving power of music (just think that lately we also have a Pope on our side, thinking the same thing, though he probably doesn’t listen to Verdena...).
By marla
The album communicates a sense of tranquility almost as if the three... have found their dimension, their corner of serenity.
'Wow' is a bold and courageous record, for certain anti-fans, but made so fascinating by this reluctance.
