INTERCITY - Yu Hu

When, several years ago now, Edwood announced they wanted to run a second project alongside their main one, with an expanded line-up and the use of the Italian language, not many were convinced it was a good idea. Then, however, the debut by Intercity won over almost universal approval, and in the meantime the Edwood story came to a definitive close; it was therefore only natural that this second effort from the sole surviving band would be met with a certain degree of anticipation. Finally, last February, this "Yu Hu" saw the light of day, showing just how seriously Fabio Campetti, Anna Viganò, Michele Campetti and Pierpaolo Lissignoli are taking the band.

You can already tell from the presence of a full 15 tracks in the tracklist that the quartet, with the addition of a few guests, had no intention of holding back, but it's even more evident once you actually hear the result of their effort. It's immediately clear that the band's idea was to ensure every single moment of the album carried the greatest possible density of content. That doesn't mean piling in a huge number of elements that interact with one another, but, much more simply, making sure that every choice - melodic, in the arrangements, or in the lyrics - had the weight to matter within the overall economy of the work.

For anyone unfamiliar with them, the Intercity style is, even more than on the first album, built on the pursuit of an erudite, ambitious, almost meditative pop-rock, guitar-driven but not excessively so, with digital elements that aim to enrich and add nuance to the sound rather than contaminate it as happened in Edwood, and with strings stepping in to further smooth away whatever few rough edges might remain. The melodies are always rather crisp and rounded, and the lyrics consistently maintain a high profile, their overall meanings - and the literary and cinematic references that often characterize them - not always easy to grasp at first listen.

The distinctive, appealing trait of the Intercity style is the way elements that are theoretically poles apart interpenetrate one another, creating an amalgam in which they become hard to tell apart. A nocturnal mood and a clean, open sound, composure and warmth, control over one's emotions and adrenaline coursing through, attention to detail and immediate overall impact: it's impossible to tell where one thing ends and the other begins, simply because there is no boundary, but a genuine fusion.

This is, then, a display of considerable inspiration and personality, lending the overall result a high-level consistency that holds up across the album's lengthy runtime. All this abundance, however, risks failing to draw the listener back for repeated plays, due to a slightly too intellectual aura that never fully dissipates, even in the most emotionally heartfelt moments, like the singles "Smeraldo" and "L'Elettricità", unsurprisingly the best tracks of the bunch.

"Yu Hu" risks coming across like one of those evenings spent in an armchair sipping a fine red wine left to breathe just the right amount - an occasion that brings a certain sense of enrichment and great satisfaction, but one that only happens once in a while. Nothing wrong with that, though: it's true that an album's ability to withstand repeated listening is always an important virtue, but even lacking that, this is such a well-crafted, personal work that it would be a real mistake to steer clear of it.

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24/03/2012