Verdena
WOW

This is definitely the most fitting title for a Verdena album here in Italy right now. But the funny thing is that's not what you'd exclaim at the end of listening to the album.

One says wow even before it hits the stores just because it's a Verdena album. And not because Verdena is a great band, good at playing and writing songs. Nor because when a good album comes out in this period of "trashy stuff" (all the undergrounders obsessed with Italian indie originality can press the x in the top right corner now!), it has to be considered a masterpiece like "dark side of the moon."

No, you exclaim wow even before it hits the stores because it's cool that such a famous band doesn't advertise and intends to release a double "aware of not being great" just because it’s their art and because for them, Verdena should be listened to like this. It’s also cool that they push the label to release a double album at a reduced price like the Clash did.

We have, therefore, an opera full of ideological intentions that it is normal that it leads artistically to the creation of this album. You can feel the "old" air. But not of already heard and therefore trivial, rather, of heard but by few.

Because Verdena has taken the musical idea of well-known bands, yes, but in their highest period that few have heard in the right way.

"The important thing is to have ideas".

This was the idea of the old music.

Here, there are many ideas, too many, and that's why Verdena insisted on having a double album. A lot of stuff spanning 27 songs. The two records reach us managed like this: a first record that comprises the BEAUTY OF THE FINISHED WORK, and a second that encompasses THE UNFINISHED IDEAS.

It starts with "Scegli Me"; a mid-tempo with the piano sound at the forefront and a psychedelic singing that repeats itself in the second "Loniterp" with much more eighties guitar sounds like U2's War. The psychedelic concept is the album's plot where psychedelia means rough sounds, little "intoxicating" riffs, voices singing about drugged visions, and choirs meant to confuse even more and convey joy. The real psychedelia, to understand each other, that of the best-selling Beatles, the most acquired Beach Boys of Pet Sound, and all the bands in the shadow of Sgt Peppers.

The contrast, therefore, of the best-selling music that generates pearls that, however, fail to climb the charts. That's what post-Beat psychedelia was in England and California. The first record, therefore, continues along this line with very melodic moments peaking at "Il Miglioramento," in my opinion. The track is the synthesis of this concept of music so intelligent because the music aims at the perfect imitation of the very current MGMT. Current trends, psychedelic revival, and commerciality merge. Here's how one can craft quality pieces (without necessarily citing the "underground bands of San Marino") to be original.

The first album closes with the suite "Sorriso In Spiaggia." In short, the album is the perfection of the previous "REQUIEM".

In the second, however, there are what I define as uncompleted to fit in the first. There are another 14 songs where Verdena tries to make many different types of songs. There's the more METAL, SLOWER, more SINGER-SONGWRITER, more GRUNGE, more Beat, and the more Acoustic one.

The titles mean nothing, and neither do the lyrics because these songs are just pure MUSICAL IDEAS. Nothing original or innovative, finally; this album doesn't mark an era. One of the many beautiful albums made by intelligent artists who release a double, record it in a barn while listening to A DAY IN THE LIFE, and go straight to the top of the charts. WELL DONE!!