LEBOWSKI - Disadottati

The Ancona-based Lebowski return with "Disadottati", the follow-up to "Propaganda" (2012), released under the name Lebowski e Nico, and above all to the fine anarchic pastiche "The Best Love Songs Of The Love For The Songs And The Best" (2008). "Disadottati" is their own reckoning with the economic crisis years: their stylistic bearings shift accordingly. It could be called the band's coming-of-age record.

The album kicks off strong with one of their most pulsating fantasies dominated by electronics, pseudo-cosmic and pseudo-acid, "Rent To Buy", which embeds in its middle a brief, detached, sing-song rap, and carries on worthily with "Il cielo è sempre meno blu", whose title is an answer-song to the hit by Rino Gaetano, actually a splendid, vibrant ruckus, launched like a steamroller.

What - judging by this opening - might be their artistic peak instead starts gradually declining from right here. The single "Il taglia teste" only tries to compete in sheer rowdy force with the nu-wavers from across the Channel (Kaiser Chiefs and their ilk). The jam launched by the refrain of "El Salvador Offshore", however taut and incisive, falls short of "Rent To Buy". The cacophonous rave of "X" nods to certain shapeshifting moves by Tiromancino, but sounds crudely amateurish. And this increasingly slapdash drift crosses the line precisely on the double track "Una vita disarmata/Signor Costa!", in theory a 9-minute tour de force, in practice a poorly shaped piece, almost stripped of their trademark quirks.

The lyrics also weigh things down, not always paragons of humour, and certainly so does the singing, of secondary importance compared to the instrumental arsenal, which still carries that toxic fury on display, albeit a bit patchy now. The band's first album not produced by Giulio Favero; he's replaced by David Lenci and Riccardo Gamonti (Uochi Toki). They do well, but only halfway.

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30/10/2015