Every now and then we lose the reins of language and some expressions that have become common, no matter how horrifying they make us, infiltrate our way of speaking. There seems to be no remedy for this “out now or out on such a day”, referring to the release of a record or a single. But it is a fact now: we no longer defend ourselves from this saying. It is a linguistic leak that makes you think of all the words that escape and that instead do no harm, the words that perhaps an artist like Serena Altavilla has always shared with the bands she was a part of, before going out on her own. .
Vice, the record on which he uses his name, is a loosening of the reins in favor of an elegant but very hot, and very dreamy alt-pop imagery. Down here, a hypnotic dirge that speaks of vestals and empty caves, is like the ghost version of a song by Giovanni Lindo Ferretti who strips himself of all messianic seriousness to leave the enchantment of the voice.
On this record, Altavilla’s voice is like a weightless bone, translucent and emptied from the bowels, to the point of becoming a magical and somewhat scary object, one that is touched with reverence and surprise. Attempt for the soul, Under the bones, A kiss below the knee: behind the melody of these sometimes bizarrely classic songs you can feel the energy of the exhumation, of sounds and possibilities of an Italian singer-songwriter – the thought goes to Cristina Donà – a little submerged under the pressure of simpler words, and more solutions rhetorical. Instead Serena Altavilla remains outside, in many ways, with all the ecstasy of her bones.
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