Violavenere
Una E Zero Luna

This is a nighttime album. It’s one of those albums that sounds nice at five in the afternoon, but at 1 AM (is the title a coincidence??) or at 3 AM, it’s a whole different music. The Violavenere (from Fabriano and Cerreto D’Esi, province of Ancona) are a band formed in 2006, winners of many national events such as Fuoritempo, Upload 2009, Infrasuoni 2009, Bologna Music Festival, Rockeggiando, and so on.

The album in question is the first from the band, composed of Erika Ferranti (vocals), Federico Dagoli and Maurizio Mezzopera (guitars), Claudia Melchiorri (electric bass), and Fabio Portinari (drums), and it represents the most significant production of the music scene in Fabriano.

It starts with the title track, one of the best pieces, with Erika Ferranti's voice immediately in the foreground (as it will be throughout the album), a sound and lyrics that take us into Ferranti's dark and distorted world. The following tracks ("Gelo E Polvere", "Disco Alice", "La Clessidra", "Vuoti D’Aria") do nothing but close the doors to the serene and reassuring world we all know, forcing us to continue to flounder among the roaring guitars of the Dagoli/Mezzopera duo and the powerful and evocative voice of Erika.

"Tempo Perso" talks about a love story that's now over ("You are wasted time among chains and affectionate desires, abusing indecent and extinguished rituals under long torments...") and spits gallons of venom at the ex in question. After the minor episodes "Mia" and "Storyboard", one of the strong pieces of the album "Bambola Livida" comes in, a flagship of the group's live performances with lyrics that are nothing short of beautiful. After "Specchi Distorti", a lament from Ferranti ("inside my dissatisfied bed I loved myself jealously in my warmth I no longer feel satisfaction") with a title emblematic of the album's overall mood, the album draws to a close with "Ist’Erika", an ode to the Mr. Hyde that’s in each of us.

As I said, a nighttime album, for those solitary and hysterical (indeed) December nights filled with cold and distant colors. An album that grows with each listen, not a masterpiece, certainly, but a very good debut that bodes well for the future, perhaps for national-level success that, if they were a band from Rome or Milan, Violavenere would have already achieved.