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7.0
- Band:
Lera - Duration: 00:45:00
- Available since: 06/06/2025
- Label:
-
Subsound Records
Streaming not yet available
The stony soil of Sardinia seems to be rather fertile for underground music, especially for the most melancholy one.
Perhaps it has to do with the fact that the places associated with tourism and lightness often hide a bitter and vaguely decadent side; Perhaps it is because the island has a wild and tract history; Perhaps because in the midst of postcard landscapes, between the heroic vegetation clinging to hostile soil, under the Salso wind and the sun drying the clothes lying as a bone of deaths, pulsates something primitive and restless. Accabadoras, mamuthones And issohadoresarchaic vibrations of Cantu at tenor: elements that know of a pastoral paganism, of deep roots, magic and restlessness.
Over time this humus has flourished by everything, from a rather interesting black metal scene to some beautiful Doom demonstration (remember, among the most recent, the 1782), up to the champions of the Italian Aem such as the oak and the refined song-folk songwriting by Daniela Pes.
The Lera fit into this panorama with a proposal that, while not exploring completely unknown places, accompanies the listener in places where it is nice to return, following a fairly personal way and pardoned by an elegant bouquet of influences. It is difficult to pigeonhole them in a precise genre: the most obvious location would be between post-metal and post-rock, but in the music of the Cagliari quartet they also resonate Doom, Shoegaze, drone and even a hint of author pop. In any case, the best way to get to know them is listening to their nice debut album, “Rêverie”.
In “Rêverie”, using a somewhat inflated image, they harmoniously coexist heart and reason. The reason is appreciated in some obviously weighted choices, such as the regular alternation of 'canonical' songs and digressions that float between electronics and instrumental; Or how the mysterious numerical allusions that make the latter title (the key is that 78, 217 and 579 are all part of the Pythagorean backhoe? “C-14” is a reference to the radioocarbon, used to date the organic finds? The search for a solution could be part of the listening experience).
The heart is instead emphasized by the emotional charge that echoes throughout the album, now more delicate, now more gloomy, but always faded, soft, enveloping.
But let's move on to the substance: inverting a generic tracklist trend, “Rêverie” opens with the song with the most ambitious minutage, “Dead Flowers”. Here, we are guided through a large instrumental anteroom to a development that recalls the Anathema and the A Perfect Circle, well revised through a post-rock lens and shoegaze. The good performance of the singer Aurora Atzeni is already distinguished here, who seems to join Maynard James Keenan and Emma Ruth Rundle.
The influence of Keenan's projects is also felt in the valid “Döppelganger”: this time we are more in the Tool area, in an ideal and successful combination with Björk which combines a solid riff pillar with philosophy atmospheres.
The most blatantly Doom inclinations of the Lera instead emerge with force in “SERDER”, with the bass of Nicola Olla in evidence, and then return to the undergrowth of the compositional stratifications in “Of Lights and Shades”. The latter song is perhaps one of the most interesting in the whole platter, in which the reminiscences of the mass but also of a Mass are combined in an interesting Blend of Doom, post-Metal and vaguely ecclesiastical suggestions.
This is, in short, the truly 'chewable' part of “rêverie” which, however, as already mentioned, moves between matter and rarefaction. Defining the instrumental openings as mere fillers would be reductive: something could work more as 'atmospheric capsules' or 'dreamlike parenthesis', also because each interlude manifests a well -defined personality. “78” is a curious encounter between a Lynchian soundtrack and Mogwai, with a tan of bells that subtly refer to the island tradition; “217” works for percussion and rarefactions synth; “C-14” introduces sounds that recall interference and electric hum.
If on the one hand this construction of the album emphasizes the delicacy of “Rêverie”, on the other hand, however, it risks making it even more volatile: in a work of this kind, in fact, the game of 'empty and full' ends up subtracting something from the speech, so much so that “rêverie” seems in some ways a long ep. More likely, it is only an album with which the Lera are taking the measures for the next step which, given the premises, certainly promises to be worthy of attention.
Daniel D`Amico for SANREMO.FM
