After 4 years, the Milanese Accauno return with a new effort, confirming the usual lineup, namely Andrea Tosini on vocals, guitars and synth/sequencer, Mattia Paneroni on bass and backing vocals and Beppe Pianesi on drums. This time, if we exclude the presentation of the concept of the album on the back cover by Giulia Caramella, the album does not include collaborations outside the trio, demonstrating a desired compactness which we will find concretized in the final result.
The concept of the album, given by the title and the reworking of the famous Sistine Chapel on the cover, is obviously found in the lyrics: the gap is that between expectations and goals, between imagined desires and those we really need, and in emotional relationships, all genesis of dissatisfaction and incommunicability.
While confirming the ambitious approach in writing the songs, in this album Accauno focus more on melodies, on suspended or persuasive atmospheres, and on more direct and lively rhythms. Be careful, however, this does not mean that the three have put aside technical expertise and virtuosity, entrusted above all to the rhythm section, more tinged with jazz influences in Paneroni's bass, more powerful and rock-like in Pianese's drums, while Andrea Tosini superimposes layers of synth and sequencer which, combined with the work of the three on the sounds of their respective instruments, and taking into account that we are talking about a trio, give the arrangements a prodigious richness.
The citationism, already made explicit in the past, is as obvious as it is exuded with good taste, exemplary for example the guitar gilmouriana which introduces “Essere voi”, while the references to progressive music of well-known foreign and Italian origins rarely reveal themselves to be pleonastic or cloying, if anything they contribute to recognizing the trio's already well-known musical language abilities.
The sounds closer to new wave, on the other hand, in this new album are more reminiscent of the results achieved, for example, by groups like Bluvertigo and Scisma in the golden decade of Italian indie, that is, in the 90s, while in songs like “Disperso” the atmospheres are clear radioheadians filtered by a more introspective and less bitter taste.
The most successful episodes are, in addition to the aforementioned seductive and introductory “Disperso”, the aforementioned “Essere voi”, the song with the most captivating and immediately catchy refrain and embellished with a splendid guitar solo, “La Madre”, with its changes in rhythm and intensity, the more typically progressive “Il Labyrinth” where the three give vent to all their playful wealth of technique and personality, and finally the very sweet and conclusive “Un angelo”, testimony of how the three have the makings not only of the best-known Italian progressive and indie groups, but also of the most classic authors of the Italian songbook and the potential to reach a wider audience without sacrificing the indispensable ambitions in writing and performances.
29/11/2025
Antonio Santini for SANREMO.FM
