Zetazeroalfa
La Ballata dello Stoccafisso

Being fascists in Italy today...

Having watched the documentary "Nazirock - The fascist contagion among Italian youth" can help understand the reason for this review, which aims to be an appendix to it.

Claudio Lazzaro's film (criticizable indeed on several fronts, especially from a methodological point of view, in my opinion) nevertheless has the merit of vividly illustrating an objective fact, often perceived more from a theoretical standpoint ("through hearsay") than a practical one: the existence and spread in Italy of eager young militants in the fringes of the extreme right.

The film reviews environments close to Forza Nuova, capturing interviews and performances by bands aligned with that political front. Among these are not included the Roman band ZetaZeroAlfa (don't ask me why I came to learn of their existence). I suppose the reason for this exclusion is that ZetaZeroAlfa constitutes a separate entity within the panorama of the Italian fascist underbelly (I mean the aligned one, not the intrinsic fascism-provincialism-whateverism present in the DNA of the average Italian).

The band is directly linked to the movement led by the Roman social center CasaPound: a movement that seems to distance itself from the organization founded by the late Massimo Morsello, the black De Gregori, who, besides having invented Forza Nuova (something perhaps not everyone knows), also left behind the fruits of an obscure song-writing career.

Listening to an album by ZetaZeroAlfa can therefore be an interesting experience, purely from a sociological viewpoint, I mean.

Two biographical notes first: the band was formed in the late nineties and debuted with the forty-five "Boicotta" in 1999, closely followed by "La Dittatura del Sorriso" (1999), "Kriptonite" (2000), "Fronte dell'Essere" (2002), "Tante Botte - Live in Alkatraz" (2005) and "La Ballata dello Stoccafisso" (2007) which I am about to discuss.

The internal notes state:

_{"During the red biennium, Italo Balbo and his fascists were delivered by the local prefect the ban on walking with the baton. Balbo's wife, seizing the opportunity, said, 'Thank goodness, now you can soften my salted stockfish...' and so saying, she handed the future leader a rod as hard as marble more than a meter and a half long... The audacious advice amused the fascists who began to soften stockfish and enemies who at the time had created a climate of fear, violence, and ungovernability of the country. Who would have thought that the redemption of a nation would somehow be linked to a fish..."}

From the humorous explanation of such a curious title descends the philosophy of the capital band: a mischievous, carefree, frivolous, arrogant fascism, frightfully void of content (this, at least, from the point of view of the musical/lyrical proposal: I do not extend my analysis to the movement behind it, I do not know it and certainly, this is not the most suitable venue to talk about it, indeed I would like to clarify that everything that follows is derived exclusively from listening to the album and nothing else).

There was talk of a great void: not that the genre played (the punk) lends itself to great sophistry and in-depth analysis since it is a straightforward music that proceeds through slogans and invectives, but the impression is that behind these slogans and invectives there is no solid conceptual foundation.

The underlying message, at the end of the day, can be summarized in the following words: "Long live us, 'screw' the others". The music of ZetaZeroAlfa, devoid of explicit revisionism and hysterical attacks of nostalgia, presents itself to our ears as "music for oneself," propaganda and a sounding board for the entire movement. It is no coincidence that 80% of the lyrics pathetically lean towards self-celebration, while the remaining 20% is divided into rough proclamations of violence ("Nel Dubbio Mena" is the most vivid example) and timid attacks on the establishment (only "Nemica Banca" responds to this call). Throughout the album, there flows a certain victimization (that mixes with pride) at feeling isolated and persecuted by an adverse and mystifying cultural hegemony.

Of course, every context must be assessed taking into account its own categories, and right extremisms have always been lacking on the analytical and depth of thought plane, adopting rather the dimension of the irrational, the instinct, the action, pure aesthetics, and provocation. Despite this "mitigating factor," the void that these tracks carry within is terrifying, tracks that, it must be admitted, are saved only by the ironic vein that runs through them, overall appreciable and capable of eliciting a smile here and there.

From a strictly musical point of view, it is a question of a elementary and crude punk'n'roll in Motorhead style (among other things, paid tribute in "Nella Mischia", an embarrassing plagiarism of the titanic "Ace of Spades"). The technical paucity reigns supreme, but we don’t feel like being too harsh on this front, also because in their simplicity, the tracks flow, here and there work, while the cracked voice Sinevox is somewhat the generating engine of everything, and his lyrics seem to constitute the founding reason for this music.

"La Ballata dello Stoccafisso" also admits to "extravagant" elements inherited from the "Drumo" experiment, a work that explores the territories of noise collage: episodes that break the monotony of a punk'n'roll that is fleeting.

Let me give you an example: "Zang Tumb Tumb", which opens the dances, grafts Marinetti's voice (probably declaiming the manifesto of the Futurist Movement) onto a violent thrash-metal carpet, supported by powerful pull-muting and heavily triggered double-bass that won’t be heard again for the rest of the album. It is perhaps the best piece of the company, a declaration of intent where one might perceive a vaguely intellectual momentum, which, however, won’t find confirmation in the tracks that follow.

One then proceeds with the bland "Cinghiamattanza", which would like to be an anthem to the exploits of those who have adopted the intelligent practice of beating each other with belts, both during concerts as a sort of pogo and in bizarre displays of brotherhood during gatherings, or simply improvising in the streets, where the brave goons love to show off their virility by taking off their belts and belting each other (I don’t know if you’ve ever witnessed it, but I assure you they are not pretty scenes).

The lackluster "Asso di Bastoni", another shameless reference to Motorhead, reiterates more or less the concept ("This is the restraint on arrogance, ace of clubs restores humility" goes the chorus), a concept that, as if it were not enough, is taken up in the giggling "Nel Dubbio Mena", the most amusing episode of the lot ("No! Don’t worry about it (because) in doubt, hit!!! And you’ll see you’ll live more!!!").

In "Fare Blocco" a bridge is consolidated towards the environments of high schools and University, raising an anthem to Blocco Studentesco, the right-wing student association, that is the 0.2% of the school population from which at least 80% of the following is recruited ("And the crowd will open at the band’s passage, we are the Blocco Studentesco stay all well on guard, And the crowd will open at the band’s passage, we are the Blocco Studentesco the march will not stop").

"Santa Teppa" praises the pub-gathering where comrade friends used to meet, while the apotheosis of self-celebration is to be found in "Senza Speranza" ("We were born marked, we are truly beautiful, here are the sons of Italy, we are the sons of the black...and there’s nothing you can do, you can’t really change us, when the team passes, our thought passes...we challenge stars and a good kick in the bottom, we are like the fever that really does not pass"; and again "we are the Roman step and the same salute, we are the hymn to life, here is what is due...and you who can do nothing, remain hidden, watching the deeds of those who really live...we are ready to jump, we are a single man, we are a single heart, much bigger than yours").

"Presente!", "Qui Contra nos?" and "Fuligine" are atmospheric interludes that shift the musical coordinates into the territories of ambient and industrial metal, while I would like to close the description of this album with a track, despite everything, really noteworthy: I am talking about "Nero Bianco Rosso", in which the band removes their guise as Motorhead wannabes and blast our ears with a robust thrash-metal whip (wherein I find the roughness of early Bathory, an observation I make personally, as I don’t think it was the band’s intention to pay tribute to the good old Quorthon, spiritual father of all of us). Well, the track works, a bit like the opening track worked, and in these two episodes, I identify the most brilliant passages of the entire album: episodes that I recommend at least downloading to understand the scope of the band.

So, these are ZetaZeroAlfa, a little window on an Italy we only know when it sporadically hits the headlines, but which in reality exists, proliferates and spreads even outside the boundaries of the capital.

I leave the conclusions that are deemed appropriate to draw to the sensitivity of each...