MILLE - Risorgimento

“Risorgimento” is the debut album by MILLE, the stage name of Elisa Pucci, a versatile and multifaceted singer-songwriter and artist. She previously fronted Moseek, a band with three albums to their name who competed on X-Factor in 2015. The record arrives after two years of work: it is the story and culmination of a period of personal rebirth, as its author herself has recounted in the numerous interviews accompanying its release.

“Risorgimento” plays with national history, echoing through the red shirt, the photos with the T-shirt bearing Garibaldi as if he were Che Guevara, and even in MILLE's own stage name, but above all it aims to be a metaphor for Pucci's own journey, her ability to leave the past behind and be reborn in the present. Staying with our own nineteenth century, one also thinks of Giacomo Leopardi's poem “Il risorgimento”, in which the poet from Recanati writes of a return to poetry after a period of aridity and lack of inspiration. 

After a musical intro, “UMPM (un maledettissimo posto migliore)”, also released as a single, lays out the album's musical path, alternating melodic ballads, electric guitars, synths and four-on-the-floor beats. So after a verse built on voice, strings and synth, it suddenly shifts and the electro-dance soul emerges. The two sides are held together by the elegantly retro tone running through the whole record and by the versatility of MILLE's voice, capable of dropping low, soaring high, and conversing with plenty of Seventies and Eighties singer-songwriter tradition. 

The next track, “Il tempo, le febbri, la sete”, one of the collection's high points, opens with a certain solemn, melodic, melancholy and languid poise, right up to the chorus, which opens up beautifully and immediately sticks in your head. The theme of the night out at the club, which links these two tracks and will return often in those that follow, has been at the centre of a huge amount of pop and other production basically since discotheques have existed; originality lies in how one chooses to handle the subject. And so MILLE surprises, telling the story of these club nights from the perspective of thirty- and forty-somethings, caught between disenchantment, irony, nostalgia and moments of wonder.

We then come across “Due di notte”, one of the more rock-leaning tracks, and “C’est fantastique” (another single), which brings to mind the eurodance earworm “La Vie C’Est Fantastique”. The following track is “Posologia”, the last single released and the only one not to have preceded the release of “Risorgimento”; it's worth giving this track its due, as it doesn't hide its rock attitude (the opening recalls “Immigrant Song” by Led Zeppelin). “Gli amanti” is a more classic ballad, almost Sanremo-esque, which confirms MILLE's ability to light up a chorus with her voice. “Una lama” starts off brilliantly and boasts one of the album's finest lyrics; it loses a bit of steam, though, once the beat kicks in, left hovering somewhere between (punk) rock and electronica. “Video Hard” ties back to “Gli amanti”, with a more rock-leaning attitude. “Artiglieria pesante” and “Tour Eiffel”, featuring Rachele Bastreghi, close out the record.

The promotion surrounding the release of “Risorgimento” has placed a lot of emphasis on the sense of personal rebirth that MILLE poured into this album; however, beyond the personal meaning its author invested in it, there is a depth and an ability to sing and craft both words and music that is genuinely rare (Pucci has explained that she worked on it together with her longtime producer and collaborator, Umbertoprimo, and that all the sounds are analogue). All that's left to do, then, is seek it out and enjoy it, listen after listen.

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07/02/2026