DON ANTONIO - La bella stagione

A bold project running in tandem with a book of the same name, “La Bella Stagione”, Don Antonio's new album marks a dividing line between past and present for the musician. For the first time, the artist steps fully into the role of singer-songwriter, well aware of the risks that come with the role of vocalist, a gap that Gramentieri tackles with both awareness and a touch of daring, inevitably name-checking Lucio Battisti and Rino Gaetano, and entrusting the magic of ten short stories—each with the charm of its own short film—to narrative strength rather than vocal polish.

No need to worry: the song format and the surprising choice to sing only in Italian don't dent Don Antonio's artistic profile. If anything, what's striking is his command of structures and harmonic timing more typical of singer-songwriters steeped in American country-blues-rock impulses. Starting right from the country-rock of "Batticuore", a track that glides along as fluidly and confidently as befits a single tasked with serving as the stylistic manifesto of a solid, convincing album. Even the synth touches are deployed with knowing, perfectly judged swing, electronic contaminations that become the gravitational center of the breezy synth-pop of "Ponente", a track that sits roughly halfway between the Battisti era-Panella and Franco Battiato.

Gramentieri has said that “La bella stagione” is an album shaped by the memory of the past and its impact on the present, a past that forces a reckoning with lost illusions and hopes. It falls to "Adesso", the album's most classically singer-songwriter piano melody, to introduce that melancholy, reflective force, with a pleasing nod to the tradition of Fossati and De Gregori.

The listless blues of “Fuoco” and the aching folk-noir narrative of “Le prime stelle della sera”, with strings, piano and percussion trailing behind its evocative talkin'-blues, are without doubt the episodes closest to the guitarist's previous artistic experiences, and at the same time they reveal a remarkable mastery of lyrical timing.

It's also a pleasure to discover Don Antonio's more playful pop side, not only in the clear homage to the ironic playfulness of Rino Gaetano (“Capiscimi”), but above all in the robotic disco-rock cadences of the excellent “Lo stesso”.

The truth is that an album like “La bella stagione” has everything it takes to be a genuine event: the perfect balance between singer-songwriter fare (the title track) and a '60s pop-beat surrealism (“Ancora di me”) is rare stuff on the home front, and rarer still is finding yourself holding one of those few songs destined to outlast a fleeting, illusory seduction: the poetic force of a track like “Distanza” has a rare lyrical and musical intensity, a ballad that enchants thanks to lyrics steeped in blood, sweat and tears and a seasoned, masterful arrangement free of blemishes or excess, marked by an evocative use of voices and the languid sound of pedal steel.

While we wait to read the companion book that completes the Emilian musician's work, Don Antonio's album “La bella stagione” is not only confirmation of an already-known talent, but a surprise that stirs the murky waters of recent Italian music.