Paola & Chiara - Milleluci

Unfortunately, being a huge Paola & Chiara fan, this album is the first to really leave me totally unimpressed. It sounds at times a bit back to the roots, more rock again (like on the early albums), also rock as in "not so conventional" like 'stringimi' (which by the way should be a Maroon 5 cover as it sounds so so similar).

Speaking about cover - they covered Rihanna's 'russian roulette', which I guess leaves me as cold as the original. I don't know why, it's fine, but it doesn't grab me and hold me and love me and take me in. It's just a dramatic song with piano which is nice. Funny enough I also don't like the vocals here so much - I know they are supposed to express drama and therefore they should sound like this, but it doesn't do anything for me.

The title track is far behind past ballads like 'un mondo pieno d'amore', 'un giorno di sole', even 'vicky' or 'anni luce' or, more recent, the great 'cambiare pagina' or the mind blowing 'senza confine'. Yes, I know it is meant to be more cheerful than most of the songs I've listed, and maybe this is why it doesn't work. It sounds stale, very trivial and cannot convince me even one tiny bit.

'pioggia d'estate' is a nice track that would only be standard on other albums, but on this one it basically stands out. It is obvious that it was made to be a hit single with the very catchy hymn chorus and the modern dance instrumentation, and it works although lacking a really fantastic idea or melody.

'sudoku' I guess quotes Madonna's Erotica album which was nice to hear, but it remains quite conventional and cannot evolve into something special. Again the melody lines go back to their first two albums. After a good start, the faster 'adesso stop!' draws cheesy 80ies Pop/Rock rhythms in that make the whole song very old fashioned and mal-crafted. It just doesn't work, despite the Drum'n'Bass and the (very nice) Electronica borrowings. And like that almost every track passes by without being memorable.

Paola & Chiara have, for me, always (or at least in their "newer" phase beginning with Television) been walking the edge between pop and pop art, and they did it very well most of the time. I usually found one or two songs on almost every album that didn't convince me, even on the really great ones I adore, but it is a really bad surprise that they have delivered such a dull, ordinary and by the way short (half an hour? really?) new album. I expected much more and cannot help feeling disappointed. Still, yes, this is an album that is nice to listen to, but really far away from what these sisters are actually capable of in the vast and exciting area of Pop music on this planet.


--Sapnish--