Disillusioned looks that intersect between a riff noise and a punk melody, while the words create generational glimpses aimed at reflecting a lost time that must be faced despite everything, apart from corpses under the bed of a B&B or scattered like shadows on the asphalt of a silent city.
Metaphors abound, explicit or implicit, in the eleven moments of “Inni e canti”, the album that marks the return of Giallorenzo.
The quartet formed in Milan in 2019, composed of Pietro Raimondi, Fabio Copeta, Giovanni Pedersini and Marco Zambetti, has clear ideas on how to expose their internal needs towards a society increasingly incapable of connecting “analogically” to a certain humanity. It's a melting pot of anxieties that expands even more clearly than the previous works, thanks also to a greater instrumental richness, as explained by some surgical inserts scattered throughout the album, starting with a rediscovered accordion at the end of “Finamente orso”, to which is added the choir of Jacopo Lietti (of Fine Before You Came), Marco Ludovico Perego and Valeria Stanca.
Then Gaddafi “appears” in the center of Rome, the cult of Ramelli, neo-fascists on parade to obviously be avoided like the plague, and friendly chronicles, such as that of Kyrill, friend of the band fleeing from Putin's Russia, protagonist of “Amico”, yet another power ballad with sonic youth fascinations and 90s alt-rock references, which are in fact the core of an album stylistically projected towards the past but which thematically is totally inserted into today's crisis, driven as it is and by the inability to fully express one's political and human torment.
Local car, run me over
So it ends here
And there will be processions for me
But I won't settle for the trauma anymore
To recognize me
It will be harder from now on
Between one sincere revolt and another, an introspection put at the service of melancholic chords that stage cascades of tears, “Hymns and Songs” manifests the profound discomfort of a generation that on paper has missed the boat but which, in any case, does not want to bow its head and genuflect to the fashions and demands of the world.
The lulling drama of “For something or someone” condenses this sort of thing at the end concept narrative, elevating an album to listen to to exorcise hidden monsters and perhaps return to better times, all while observing a strangely new and still possible horizon. Moreover, it is no coincidence that the four say: “If songs become hymns and chants, it is because there is an ideology involved.” A clear declaration of intent that says a lot about the path of a formation that is as bold as it is, in its own way, indomitable.
03/11/2025
Antonio Santini for SANREMO.FM
