Blanco – the review of the new album, But'out from April 3, 2026.
Growing leads to change, it applies to everyone and at all levels. Nobody grows up remaining the same person they were at 15, 18, 20 years old and we have to deal with it every day, there is no escape from this unwritten rule of life.
There are some things that, almost necessarily, life requires you to leave behind and if at 16 you could afford to jump on chairs and smash an apartment with a stick, at 23 responsibilities rear their heads and you have to deal with the consequences of your actions, which is why (if you are intelligent) that rebellious part calms down almost automatically.
What happened to Blancolistening to his new album, seems to be exactly this: a punk and rowdy kid, without the slightest control, becomes an adult and understands on his own that perhaps the time has come to calm down, rearrange his ideas and calm down.
But' it is the synthesis of this growth in less than 50 minutes and we must reckon with it.
The truth is that the first listen to this album, if you know Blanco even before its great and irrepressible success, it leaves you with a strange bitter taste in your mouth. The brutality, the expressive and visual power, the strength of the sounds that arrive straight in your face like a revolution of Celestial Blue have disappeared almost into thin air, this third album is glossy, controlled, impoverished in sound and intentions.
To draw a parallel, it's as if today John Lydon hey Sex PistolsAfter Never Mind The Bollocksreleased a pop-style album Ghost Stories of the Coldplay.
Blanco era John Lydon and it became Chris Martin.
But' It's Blanco's ALBUM with INTENSE LYRICS AND MUSIC WITHOUT BITING
Listening to this third album by Riccardo Fabbriconi One factor that may be key immediately catches your ear: the lyrics are there, the music isn't. The ability to write profound and impactful things about Blanco it has not faded away, rather it has reached a new level of maturity with advancing age.
What seems to be the real weak point of these 46 minutes is the musical part, Michelangelo and his ideas which no longer seem to have such an impact on the voice and the ongoing change of Blanchito.
Of course, we are talking about a project on which a lot of money has been invested so technically there is nothing wrong with listening, it is the perception of qualitative disconnect and emotional distance between text and music that lies behind all the work that stands out.
At the time of Celestial Blue a fine work had been done on the voice so particular as to make it unique. Those dirty spots, those distorted, almost industrial-style details Nine Inch Nails they had made the stamp of Blanco iconic for more than one generation.
Having reached this third album, we feel that we have gone in a direction of clean pop which, however, has put the lion in a cage. In this case the lion is the timbre, the cage is the glossy sound that covers it.
Has the time come to find new artistic paths from a future perspective? “Blanchito baby, Michelangelo, give me wings” it is now a historic claim but, perhaps, it would not have been wrong to find new stimuli elsewhere.
DEPRESSION, ADDICTIONS, FALLS AND RISINGS. BLANCO FREES HIMSELF FROM EVIL
Reading the lyrics we can say with complete serenity that this is an album of redemption, obviously the result of the maturity mentioned above, with very high peaks of writing in the title track But'.
“I don't love myself, this life sucks, you warned me” or again “If I don't wake up tomorrow I will wait for you there… I don't love myself” they are phrases and concepts of off-scale emotional power.
When we talk about redemption we also talk about awareness, the one that Blanco he puts it into play when he makes everyone understand what he, evidently, fortunately understood some time ago: success tears apart, destroys and you have to be ready to take it on with broad shoulders.
It was already clear to many that this sudden explosion at a very young age, in 2021, had affected him psychologically because many wrong things and choices were made afterwards, and many of them. Reaching 23 by putting an end to your thoughts, rationalizing and starting again is not something for everyone.
Starting again can be done, as in his case, also by relying on those who have experienced these things before him as Gianluca Grignani. He was the Blanco of the 90s, or rather is Blanco to be the Gianluca Grignani of the 1920s.
Vices, addictions, embracing the devil and being carried away by sin is an experience that Grignanialmost like a father, he tells the hypothetical son trying to suggest between the lines the best way out.
Worse than the Devil it is the main song of the album linked to the theme of addictions, which they both knew closely. To date, Grignani evidently continues to suffer the consequences of his internal struggles (the news of yet another cancellation of the tour due to health conditions leaves us wondering…) and acting as a mother hen to Blanco it may have been useful.
A key moment of this album is the story linked between the two songs December 15 (first) And July 27 (after)in which the theme seems to be that of an unfinished pregnancy and a relationship that subsequently ended due to the weight of what happened.
There are some key phrases that make this clear, starting from the sibylline “You, me and her here”up to the time span of seven months between the two dates which, among other things, and the nine months mentioned in the passage by the same Blanco in July 27: “Today I feel broken, nine months have passed”. Coincidence or real story of such a profound private sphere?
True awareness of life comes towards the end, starting from Fires in the air (luck) where the sentence “It's just luck that it blossomed like a flower” lets out that sigh of relief in having overcome adversity, even the greatest, to finally make room for smiles and calm.
There is space for the detailed analysis of every aspect of the life of this boy who became a man, of this punk who became a good guy. But' it was for this, to reorganize ideas after a rather long period of difficulty and now it is clear. This type of album becomes important for putting a point in the past and starting again, so it could also turn into a transitional album before creating a hypothetical 'album of life', who knows.
Certainly, given that we find ourselves faced with this type of concept, underlining any critical issues is important but the only real critical issue is the one we have already expressed before: Blanco he was never the problem, except for himself. Now that everything seems to have started again, it will be necessary to find the musical framework for this new phase.
Making such beautiful lyrics and locking them in a gilded pop chart cage almost seems like a shame. Taken individually, all of the songs on the album have the potential to become standout singles and focus tracks. BlancoHowever, does he need this? Does he need numbers and big chart success again?
He also says that that's not the goal, he says it right in this album, so why not look for a new sound not based on the charts but on the concept. Read the entry 'I Individual' to definitively understand what we are talking about.
Let's keep the beauty, the emotion, the desire to free ourselves and share gracefully. Blanco he's back and that's already news. At 23 he has already faced everything but life is still long and if he continues to live it as he always has, he will still have many things to tell.
LYRICS RATING: 9 MUSIC RATING: 6
TOTAL MARK: 7
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Best songs: Worse than the Devil, But', December 15th
Worst Songs: Crying at 90
Daniel D`Amico for SANREMO.FM
