Subsonica: the review of Augmented Reality

THE Subsonic they only make a new album when it's necessary, when they feel the need. AND Augmented reality it is the result of the urgency of wanting to describe the miseries and hopes of our days. The sound staging stages a contradictory and fragile present. On the one hand there are those who enjoy, taking advantage of the lack of humanity. On the other hand, there are those who despair and try to escape from reality. Unfortunately, almost no one joins the others to try to face it and change it. «Reality increased when utopia surrendered».

There inhumanity of the present opens the album with Human dogsthe. In relationships, men behave like hungry dogs. The hope is that the pain will at least be useful for saving oneself. From the first note they are immediately Subsonica. There are the semitones and melodic intervals of the voice of Samuel and the obsessive electronic rhythms constructed by Max Casacci, Boosta, NinjasAnd Fabulous. The atmosphere of the first song is ancestral, then the guitar arrives and the piece opens, anticipating the entrance of the drums and the final explosion. Since the first of the 11 songs of Augmented reality The expectation immediately grows on how much energy this record will have when played live.

From the 80s setting of Light morning a thread begins that leads back to 1997, to the romantic reggae of Got bluetrack from the debut album, Subsonic. The fear of the different and the possible has built up in recent years a prison for the bodies and for the souls who live there. Their tormentors are the judgment of others and the fear of disappointing.

Fistful of sand she is not aggressive. It's an answer vital and energetic – as his refrain – to the mortality spread by “a past that never passes”. It is a social and political song, like many of Augmented reality. It tells of the anger of those who “no longer have a homeland of origin” are forced to a future always from foreigner.

To erode the throat in No fault it's tragedies of our time and the banality of evil. The images described by Samuel's corroded voice are powerful – «Kissing the fire with petrol in your mouth» – and the arrangement is exciting: from the choirs that hide behind the chorus to the guitar riffs that accompany the verses. «Fall asleep in an endless fire». It will be very strong live.

After the consolation Missiles and drones, the only two guests on the album enter. They haven't come far, they too come from Turin: Willie Peyotewho had already played a cameo The nightmarecontained in 8and Ensi. The bubble bursts it is a choral piece. Friends chat about polarization, conspiracies and social media. On the table are the decadence and cultural misery of our time, where “they compete for those who glitter but then no one shines”. But there is also the hope that someone can represent a collective resistance against rampant individualism.

In Hail we talk about attraction, passion and the charm of new flavors. A literary topos dear to Subsonica and already sung in some pieces of past albums, such as Left, Snake or The sky over Turin. After Vitiligothe most intimate piece of the album, Slowly it's closure. A song created to be the soundtrack to the film of the same name Stefano Sollima and which earned the band the Special Soundtrack Stars Award at the 80th edition of the Venice Film Festival. Its cinematic soul is perfect to conclude Augmented reality: a climax that at its peak brings together all the meaning of the end. “It's getting dark.”