Timoria

In that great melting pot that was Italian rock in the '90s – among Afterhours, Verdena, Marlene Kuntz and many others – there was one band that, more than most, managed to capture the weaknesses and fears of a generation raised on the rubble of the Berlin Wall. That historic event, which marked the end of ideologies and seemed to foreshadow an illusory "end of history", had an almost immediate effect on the twenty-somethings of that decade: a deep sense of disorientation, the feeling of living in an era with nothing alternative left to believe in or fight for, a "generation without wind", lacking any vital drive, any dream to chase beyond the selfish, Crusoe-like ambition of landing a good job or achieving mere financial self-fulfilment.

It's no coincidence that Timoria hailed from Brescia, a provincial city with a typically entrepreneurial mindset, where anyone who doesn't fit that worldview can only feel different and marginalized. In those years, Timoria fully embodied a generation that saw escape as the only way to find an alternative path to their most authentic self, looking to the East or South America as places somewhere between real and "imagined" in which to rediscover themselves – doing, in a sense, what director Gabriele Salvatores was doing at the very same time with his "trilogy of escape".

After the success of "Viaggio senza vento" (1993), Timoria carried these themes forward with excellent works such as "2020 SpeedBall" (1995) and "Eta Beta" (1997) – venturing almost into thrash territory ("Europa 3", "Mi manca l'aria") – which could almost be considered the second and third chapters of a true trilogy of escape. There's a common thread running through the entire post-1993 discography of the Lombard band, an invisible thread linking songs like "Senza vento", "La fuga", "Sudamerica" and "Via padana superiore". After Renga's departure for more lucrative but far less substantial pastures, the band delivered two respectable works, "1999" and "El Topo Grand Hotel", with singer Davide "Sasha" Torrisi, which continued the poetics of their early hits with songs like "Deserto" and "Sole spento".

"Viaggio senza vento" is Timoria's fourth LP, but in many ways it could be considered their true debut. Calling it alternative rock isn't quite accurate, since it's ultimately fairly classic in structure (albeit rich with a wide range of influences) – though not so much for a country like Italy, which immediately perceived it as something new.

The record opens straight away with Pedrini's heavy riff on "Senza vento", the first manifesto of a generation that dreams and screams out its longing for freedom, yet doesn't know which direction to take because there's no wind, no aspiration at all ("Vivo e non credo in niente, credo in niente"). So begins the story of Joe, a young man torn between an adolescence that's coming to an end and an adulthood filled only with uncertainty. The abandonment of old reference points is the theme of the ballad "Sangue impazzito", in which Joe feels the pull to leave behind the friends of his past and distance himself from the religion that had comforted him in his early years. A painful but necessary step, rendered with poetic touch and in a style typical of metal balladry. In his first act of escape, Joe takes refuge in an artificial paradise ("Lasciami in down"), where adults (in this case the police) play a purely repressive role, recalling certain police scenes from Stanley Kubrick's "Arancia meccanica" (Stanley Kubrick).

A life not fully lived but slowly slipping away is the theme of "La cura giusta", a new folk-rock ballad enriched with wind instruments. The heaviest moment is "Il guardiano dei cani", where Renga's lyrics return to the theme of submission to society's dogmas, using the metaphor of a dog faithful to the master who mistreats it. The band manages to stay credible even at the edges of metal, a border they would go on to cross fully in later albums.

The true starting point of the journey, the moment of breaking away from the old society, comes with "La fuga", one of the album's most poetic moments, where lyrics and rock sound are inextricably fused together. The opening keyboards, Pellegrini's pounding bass and Pedrini's lyrics with their shouted backing vocals ("Va via!") make this one of the most accomplished and well-balanced moments in Timoria's entire career.

The escape could only lead Joe eastward. Raga-inspired Indian sounds emerge, bringing us to "Verso Oriente", another surprising moment in their discography, with Omar Pedrini's voice dueting with Eugenio Finardi on a track brimming with pathos that sets off a solitary journey to rediscover the self ("Vado via insieme a me").

Joe's journey continues with more conventionally rock tracks like "La città del Sole", "Piove" and "Il sogno", which confirm Timoria as a band with an easy gift for effective melodies, enriched by meticulously crafted arrangements.

Overall, though, the second half of "Viaggio senza vento" doesn't hold up as well against the first, which is more poetic and more innovative within the landscape of Italian rock. There's no shortage of nostalgic moments for Joe, as in the traditional-style track "Lombardia", which manages to capture the deepest essence of the region. At times the record strays from the concept, as on "Frankenstein", which edges close to the prog of Goblin. The journey east continues ("La città di Eva") and closes with "Il guerriero", in which Joe returns now strong, having finally found the wind he couldn't grasp years before ("Il guerriero è tornato e sa dare un senso a giorni inutili").

In 1993, "Viaggio senza vento" left its mark on the Italian rock scene, selling over fifty thousand copies and, above all, giving voice to feelings that were very much alive within Italian society, particularly among its younger generations. A record that defined an era, especially for those who lived through it firsthand.

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17/04/2022