Monday 5 June 2023

METROPOLITAN MADNESS

Appartenenza is the second album by Milanese prog band Macchina Pneumatica and was released in 2022 on the independent Black Widow Records label with a confirmed line up featuring Raffaele Gigliotti (lead vocals, backing vocals, guitars), Carlo Fiore (synth, Hammond, electric and acoustic piano, backing vocals), Carlo Giustiniani (bass, backing vocals) and Vincenzo Vitagliano (drums) plus the guest and co-producer Alberto Ravasini (former member of historic Italian prog band Maxophone - backing vocals). The new album reflects all the good qualities of its predecessor with its excellent mix of vintage sounds and original ideas. The colourful art work by Beatrice Traversin probably describes the musical and lyrical content better than my all words...
 

The raging opener “Appartenenza” (Belonging) conjures up a dark atmosphere with heavy electric guitar riffs and powerful organ passages. The music and lyrics evoke a dystopic society where different groups of humans act like packs of wolves avoiding to mix with each other. Whites with whites, blacks with blacks, reds with reds, that’s the way to preserve their spawn...
 
The nightmarish, bluesy “Pazzo” (Mad) gives voice to an outcast, a stranger in his own home city who is going through a personal crises and is sinking in a sea of doubts. He can’t find a way out and is rejected by the conformist people who look at him like at an old king who has lost his crown and now is useless and helpless. He can feel the contempt of the straight against the different and that’s driving him insane. Then a kind of nursery rhyme sung in German leads to the disquieting finale...
 

“Fuoco d’agosto” (August fire) tells in music and words of a desperate story of alienation. In August, in an empty city, a lonely boy sets himself on fire as a consequence of his inner desert. He’s alone in his room with his television and his mobile phone when calls a live television broadcast announcing his self-immolation. In a few moments his naked skin burns under the summer sun and on all the TV screens...
 
The long, hypnotic instrumental “Il cerchio” (The circle) is an excellent track that leads to the following “Rendimento garantito” (Guaranteed performance), a disquieting piece about human commodification and blind conformism. The lyrics evoke images of misleading elections, losers supported and comforted by analysts, old people crossing the streets without paying attention to the traffic, men queuing up to donate their blood to the pawnshop...
 
The last track, “Venerdì sera” (Friday evening), starts by a delicate piano introduction, then the rhythm rises while the music and lyrics depict the effort of the protagonist to escape from his daily grind evoking a dream of absolute freedom and excess, a dangerous plunge into the nightlife under a false name in search for fun and lust. The protagonist seems to get lost while devils and witches play with his thoughts and the border between virtual reality and real life melts...
 
On the whole, a very good work!
 
You can listen to the complete album HERE
 
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