My Review: Estetica Noir - Amor Fati

 Estetica Noir - Amor Fati

The joy and damnation of life is all in the fat and poisonous hands of time, the one who remains young, immortal and has the gift of giving birth to existences and leading them to death. 

On this self-centred and selfish being, malignant and generous, there has been a deep, specific study over the millennia that has failed to change things. It has not even learnt to accept it, all the hard work has slipped into despair, even resignation, and each of us oil the mechanisms of our dreams to find strength and consolation.

Which is what the Turin-based band Estetica Noir has done in its new work, which is nothing more than a concept album that addresses some of the aforementioned themes, to become, through these nine compositions, a point of reference, a starting point, a heavenly traffic light in order to set off again towards a consciousness that will light up the darkness and make them surrender a little.  Amor Fati reveals completely different attitudes than in the past, a constant pressure towards form and content with the ability to cross time even musically speaking, with noble footholds and references that know how to make the whole appear like a painting depicting the past already immersed in breaking through to the future. Less gloomy, less tied to gothic clichés, this disc observes, describes, amplifies the goal of feeling no shame in visiting different perspectives, ending up warming the muscles of the heart and opening the corridors of the mind.  The journey reveals maturity, ingenuity, sensory elasticity, forays into territories little practised by the group in the past, a sowing of new experiences that sweetens the artistic language and makes it strong, precise, dynamic and engaging. The musical genres of which this gem is composed are a climatic, moody embrace, with the ability to stitch together these remarkable fluids with excellent production at the hands of Riccardo Sabetti, a magician at the service of the beauty and value of the material written by these four sound psychologists.

One is moved by the electronics, the beats, the sidereal flows of a new liquid face of synthwave, here capable of revealing new dynamics. Time, we said. That's it: the sifting carried out also shows the ability to make music dreamy, physical, vehement, cryptic, animalistic with grace, in a fury that sounds like a dictionary of semiotics, a bloody embrace that spares no energy to make it all comprehensible.  Dowsing songs in search of light, of an enlightened dimension that structures everything towards dilation, with the skilful manoeuvre of making even the legs, in constant movement, capable of dancing to make the interlocking of demanding topics as happy as possible.

Notice how the guitars are travelling companions, accomplices of an ensemble that is structured to make the compositions win: even in this aspect the maturation is evident, it brings, besides a novelty, the precise will to take care of the topics with a division of tasks that does not yield to any blackmail. And the voice is a cherry blossom capable of interpreting very well the torrent of vital and profound words, interesting, well written and excellently expressed in a manner that shows a stratospheric density.  The enjoyment of listening passes through the variations, runs and walks in the multiple atmospheres, in a windy flow that brings on board temperatures and emotional oscillations open towards the engagement with structures that, even if they remind us of things we have already heard, the band knows how to express better, for a result that tilts satisfaction in emotion: there are recurring shivers and stuns that kiss amazement, with the certainty that all this is only the beginning of a new sky that they have been able to invent...

The Old Scribe is certain of the value of this album, much less so of the ability of the masses to give it the acclaim it deserves and the use it deserves, as, for real, these songs are academics, indispensable information for maturing a growth that directs existence in the association of reality and dream in a new Eden...

Song by Song

1 - Burnout

"Why did the screen become your god? Why do you show guns instead of love?"

And it's immediately stormy, ebm spectres and acid synthwave gathered in a choral solo of screams that wander through the night to bestow conscious fruit to be watered. Synth plays like thunderstorm rays and the voice, doubled, creeps into your head as you dance already upset... 

2 - Pain

"A lot of lies ruined my reputation. Art brightened my empty days.

I couldn't be all I wished. Fragile dreams."

Astonishment becomes awareness, hatred, life, loneliness, illusion, all are confiscated by this melodic ride that, between coldwave with evening trickery and an electric game that comes from the Germanic shores of the eighties, reveals a neurotic ecstasy that makes one exhausted but faced with relational truth.

3 - Summer Shine

"You were the danger I loved, the dreg, the alien god, 

you were the pleasure of someone who dares."

The song that most shows the impact with the Italo disco of the 1980s and then glides towards the boundaries that Depeche Mode were never able to perfect, it is a steam full of claws that has chosen to be slower than the two previous tracks, managing to sow tension and interest, also through a vocal that shows remarkable differences compared to Silvio Oreste's entire vocal career.

4 - Faded

"I'm afraid of dying when this time will end. I want to play again.

 Can you hear me? I'm fading away."

Here is the dialogue with God, a venomous face-to-face, where human will is clarified with its boldness, with provocation, with knowing complaints. It dances with a format that releases synth jewels and a yearning, melancholic bass, creating a cradle between the precipices of a marvellous lyric.

5 - The End of Moraliadays

"Whenever you'll cry and whenever you'll smile, you know that I will be proud of you."

A change of atmosphere, the courage of an openness to human understanding that softens and makes us tender puppies content and sure of love. A mantric blanket takes hold of our stomachs, sparks of synths from Orchestral Manoeuvres in The Dark mixed then with a subtle work of diminishing instruments and then resuming and leading us towards the end of the day make the song a magnetic gem.

6 - Iter Vitae

Marco Caliandro is the author of the only instrumental track, a crossroads of seduction that starts from the kiss of Kraftwerk to join with supple ebm explorations, to make love to dreams, in a design where the film of a silent film takes space within this surreal magic…

7 - Strange Hologram

"Once upon a time, when the sky was bright, people talked and smiled."

The Queen of the album, the Goddess of consciousness who distributes decisions and nocturnal imprints, brings herself into the day. And she does so with almost suspended electronic branches, while the words are storms without surrender...

8 - Stockholm's Azure

"Where do we go, now? Life is too short to give up, we must stand."

The permanence, the struggle, the sense of the whole find a way to suggest an orgiastic sonic trail, atavistic impulses patrol the steps of life through this delirium, an up and down that highlights macronutrient vocals and the relief of a stave that contains rich swathes of light and darkness at arm's length.

9 - The Cell

"Do you think to have a choice? Walls of lies surround you."

This pregnant temple of brilliance ends in a slow, wintry rain, towards evening, at a time when truth cannot be silenced. The band unleashes an excruciatingly brilliant, wet, slow-moving sonic beam, a comet star that swings like the electronic turn of the band Placebo did. And it's a harmonious embrace between tears and weed-filled poetry....

Alex Dematteis

Musicshockworld

Salford

9th April 2024

https://esteticanoir.bandcamp.com/album/amor-fati