RANCORE - Tarek da colorare

We had left Rancore exploring an alternate reality in "Xenoverso" (2022), and we find him far more entertaining on this new "Tarek da colorare", a dynamic album that bites hard and keeps the pace up from start to finish.

One of the best moments is the opening "Fanfole", where lyrical-metrical virtuosity is finally put to the service of a taste for the absurd and nonsense, fittingly built around a Valerio Lundini sample. But beneath the surface of a track full of more or less meaningless terms lies a real broadside aimed at the incomprehensible language of politics, with its inconsistent, muddled message. This is a headlong Rancore, declaring himself impatient and exasperated on the following "Basta!", a kind of crossover hit, an orchestral rap-rock number that contradicts itself, a present-day "Out of the tunnel" that calls for a break from the frantic machine of entertainment, clicks, and disposable music.

The following "Fiori del male" doesn't back down an inch either, following a densely packed first verse with an unexpected techno chorus that morphs into rap-metal, delightfully disorienting as it turns Gianni Rodari upside down:

To make the tree (Of evil) you need the seed (Of evil)

To make the seed (Of evil) you need the fruit (Of evil)

To make the fruit you need the flower (Of evil)

To make everything you need a flower

There's a moment to catch one's breath in the urban, city-bound storytelling of "Roma non può" and "Scale mobili", bitterer yet still anxiety-ridden tracks. The muscle-flexing returns on the frenetic "Neminem", about his identity as a rapper unlike any other:

You can ask Schrödinger

If this is a röpper and he'll answer you: yes, no

I am no one, I am no one

And I never will be, and I never will be

I no longer see a train but I'm the top rapper

I sing it in latinorum and then you sing along with me

No one, I'm ne-mi-nem, No one, I'm ne-mi-nem

The mournful "Involucri", a relationship drama told with surgical narrative skill, sets up the overexcited "Nuovo singolo", another hit that denies itself, built on a frenetic, futuristic beat. Divorce is at the heart of the mournful "Divinità", while "Codex Seraphinianus" once again flaunts his talent as a lyricist, skilled in wordplay and the most disparate references. Closing out the national portrait is "L'Italy è l'unico paese che", on blasphemy and other homegrown hypocrisies.

"Tarek da colorare" channels Rancore's lively flair into an album that embodies his way of making music without tipping over into the overly cerebral, as has happened on other occasions. Alongside the weight of the message and the storytelling comes a healthy dash of sarcasm and bitter self-irony, starting with the title and the cover art. If the choruses are still, all too often, the least memorable parts of the songs, the verses are dense with ideas, thoughts and reflections that feel especially precious in a musical landscape largely devoid of any message. Stripped of the somewhat unwieldy concept-album format that was "Xenoverso", and so free of over-explaining but with more (atypical) hits, Rancore finds the right balance for the second act of his career. Quite possibly one of the Italian rap albums of the year.

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09/05/2026