"ITALIA: ULTIMO ATTO" & WGT 09 REPORT @ FILTH FORGE (I) by Il Levriero Staff
01/08/2009 at 16:44
Another awesome "Italia: Ultimo Atto" review @ FILTH FORGE (I)
"If you decide to listen to Ianva’s awaited second full-length opus, be ready to experience a lot more than just music. "Italia: Ultimo Atto", from its very title, is indeed more similar to a dramatic documentary about the last sixty years of Italy’s history, with all its dark and blood-soaked sides, narrated through vivid images and inspired by the chronicles and the events that forever marked different ages of the band’s fatherland. Just opening the elegant and refined digibook, you realize that there’s an impressive amount of work behind this album: each song deals with a different single episode or a whole period of Italian vicissitudes, conjured through original vintage recordings, voices of actors portraying some of the characters involved in the stories, striking pictures and newspapers headlines, exhaustive historical notes and, last but not least, Mercy’s touching lyrics.
The prologue features the voice of actor Enrico Silvestrin reading a passage by Pier Paolo Pasolini: his words are shocking, because they foresee with at least thirty years of anticipation the current, disastrous state of things in Italy, underlining with bright consciousness all the elements so evident today. It’s impressive to listen to this apocalyptic forecast, and realize how damn right he was. The listener has got about one second to remain breathless, reflecting about the poet’s powerful vision, that the trumpet of the Final Judgment starts to blow: it’s that of "Dov’Eri Tu Quel Giorno?", first epic and dramatic jewel in a track list that has to be listened from the beginning to the end to be believed. The song is about the effects of the armistice signed by Marshall Badoglio and King Vittorio Emanuele III on the 8th September 1943, one of the most tragic and shameful dates in the whole national history. The question asked in the title is ironically addressed to all those who quickly jumped on the winner’s caravan, changing colour and credo from one day to the other.
Immediately after that first striking anthem, a small excerpt from an old song played from a shellac leads us to what is one of the album’s highest peaks, "Galleria Delle Grazie": the intensity, the blood that seems to spill from every word, the tension and the dramatic climax cannot be described with words. You need to listen to this masterpiece of a dark ballad to understand. This time, the topic deals with the bombings suffered by northern Italy after the armistice and the German occupation, and in particular there’s reference to a very sad and forgotten episode, in which an orphanage was destroyed by bombs, killing all the children and nuns that were assisting them in Genova, 1942. Seen through the eyes of a 16-years old boy, there’s a vivid, frightening and horrified description of the bombings and the effects on innocent civilians. There’s a use of female backing vocals in this song, giving particular emphasis to the most dramatic passages, that is pure perfection. If you thought Ianva couldn’t possibly do better than "Disobbedisco!", listen to this song: it may sound unbelievable, but the debut album fades away in comparison!
More milestones wait ahead: "Negli Occhi Di Un Ribelle", another Romantic declaration of intents, "Bora", a touching and tragic tribute to the Italians sent away from the regions of Dalamatia and Istria, annected by Yugoslavia after the end of WWII, victims of history remembered by Italian authorities themselves just in very recent times, and then "Cemento Armato", a fantastic spaghetti-western soundtrack with real recordings from another devastating episode: a terrorist bomb exploding at Piazza Fontana, in Milan, December 1969, killing 17 people and wounding 88. Many more bombs would have exploded in the following years, and the number of dead would have dramatically increased. "Pasionaria" is another exquisite "Morriconian" song, sort of elegy in which the poet looks back thinking of her female comrade, who fought with fanatical conviction along many other girls and women during the infamous "anni di piombo" (lead years), practically a new civil war orchestrated by occult puppet masters.
Stefania D’Alterio’s astonishing vocals, so much appreciated in, among others, "Tango Della Menade" and "Un Sogno d’Elettra", carve in marble three of the most impressive songs. "Luisa Ferida" is dedicated to the Italian actress, celebrated icon of the Fascist regime, who was executed by partisans at the end of WWII without any trial on the base of false accusations. The lyrics are original and most effective, using a cinematographic language to describe the former diva’s last moments of life. "In Compagnia Dei Lupi" has that feeling of the traditional Italian popular ballad, and, again, lyrics are striking: ironic and vitriol-filled, they are inspired by a scandal occurred in the early 1950s’, when a young girl in search of a fast and easy career died of cocaine overdose at a party of "important people". Today, this episode would go unnoticed, and Ianva are perfectly sarcastic about this, when the singing voice, that of the rich "gentlemen" ’ s maid, says that "as a mother I shouldn’t even imagine that similar things do exist". In modern days’ Italy, mothers are eager to send their sometimes still underage daughters to this kind of parties, hoping to turn them into the key to high society, money and power. Our current Prime Minister is an expert in the field...
Finally, another tribute: "Piazza Dei Cinquecento", about the murder of Pier Paolo Pasolini, surely one of the most emblematic deaths among the many occurred in the tragic Italian 1970s’. The song is melancholic and nocturnal, catching the great poet and director’s last instants of life through the eyes of one of the last people who saw him alive, the keeper of the inn where he had his very last dinner. More darkness is evoked by "L’Estate Dei Silenzi", remembered through Mercy’s personal memories of the summer of 1980, in which an Italian plane "mysteriously" fell, causing the death of 81 people, and another bomb exploded, this time in Bologna’s central station, killing 85 people and wounding 200. That was the most brutal peak reached by terrorism in the so-called "strategy of tension". The title-track closes the album with a ruthless invective, portraying "a country that makes you puke, so much defeated that crossing all limits seems just rightful to it" (very roughly translated, many apologizes to Ianva!). Mercy’s lyrics describe a state of incredulity in front of the present, disastrous situation of Italy, with a final, paradoxical but tragic truth: the country has returned to be avantgarde, that of a West definitely sinking into oblivion.
If it wasn’t clear yet, "Italia: Ultimo Atto" is a total masterwork under every point of view, an astonishing piece of music, art, poetry and literature that you definitely can’t afford to miss. As much incredible as it may sound, the marvelous debut "Disobbedisco!" can’t absolutely stand in comparison, and, honestly, not much else around at the moment in the music scene either. For non-Italian speakers, Ianva have prepared translations of all lyrics and info from the booklet, in order to help their vast fanbase abroad better get into their world and fully appreciate their art. They are freely available on their official website. Another proof, if we needed it, of this extraordinary band’s value."
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