Wrong Way
Illusioni

I'm sorry to say, but most Italians don't know a damn thing about music. In fact, our country is decades behind other states like England and the USA. While we make heaps of money for people like DJ Francesco, Luca Di Risio, and Paolo Meneguzzi, there are talented individuals relegated to basements, forced to play covers in pubs. But it's not just the people's fault; it's also the record companies, which are no longer interested in launching great bands but only in creating hit songs meant to be forgotten after 2 months (and to think that in the '70s, a barely twenty-something Lucio Battisti was allowed to record albums like "Amore e non Amore"...).

Okay, after this Pino Scotto-style rant, let's talk about the band I'm reviewing today: the 'Wrong Way' is a band from Bari formed in 2003 from the meeting of Marco "Rkt" Dello Russo (vocals), Gianvito "IL Jeré" Rutigliano (guitar), Alessandro "TheLegs" Salvatore (guitar), Domenico "dionisiaKo" Simone (bass), and Alessandro "Spartaco" Spagnuolo (drums), whose genre has been self-defined as "miscellaneous rock", a blend of various genres (from funk to blues, from rock to Latin and 70s prog atmospheres), without neglecting the melodic taste of Italian rock.

"Illusioni", completely self-produced and downloadable for free from their website, is their first testimony. The demo opens with "Falso Andante", a rock without frills, where the great opening bass, breaks, and restarts that recall progressive, and a very nice solo create the musical backdrop for the lyrics. In this aspect, the band deserves praise: besides choosing Italian, the lyrics are full of metaphors, and the language used is never predictable or trivial. The second track is "Panna": the harsh guitar riff leads us to the more calm verse and the chorus, where Rkt sings: "Ossequi ad una vita pensata e vissuta, grandi carriere distrutte nel vuoto, padri stupendi stupendamente complicati, e tu...", but the structure is never fixed, and in the central part, there's space for the guitars, among slowdowns and distortions.
Next is "Notturno, a beautiful evocative ballad, with gypsy atmospheres, the best of the batch in the opinion of the writer, with lyrics bordering on poetry: "Ho legato il mondo con nastri di velluto/rubando i tuoi presenti e ridestandomi in te/ho ammirato il tuo nome nella mia coscienza/legando la mia anima a ogni parte di te" where the acoustic guitar in the verses gives way to the electric one in the chorus: "Come se fossimo estranei ogni volta che vorrai/lascia una parte della nostra unione in me".

The last song is the long (almost 9 minutes) "Perché", which starts slow and heartfelt, giving way midway through the track to a guitar-only interlude to recreate an ethereal and dreamy atmosphere, and then returning, after the sound of the gong, to the main theme with a very poetic ending: "Abbandoniamo le mie care illusioni, ormai sospese. . . ormai. . . ".