Newsgroup: it.fan.musica.rem
Titolo: Una bella recesione di UNCUT - 4 stelle

ecco capite che chi ha recensito ha ascoltato di sicuro e più volte
tutto l'album... e poi non parte con "Since Bill Berry left.... " ;)
from Uncut:
STARS AND STIPES [*LOL! bella trovata*]
Athenian trio deliver alternative state of the union address on sombre
14th album.
'This album is all about the war. This doesn't mean that I think any
of the particular songs are about the war or that any of the songs are
protests over it. All I mean to say is...that there is an awareness
contained within the mood of the album as a whole'.
That was Jon Landau, writing in 1967 about Dylan's cryptic, elliptical
John Wesley Harding. But his words might do just as well to describe
Around The Sun. Certainly, the rueful, stately single 'Leaving New
York' gave the lie to the idea that this was going to be a batch of
simple protests against 'Ignoreland'. If the record leaves NY, it's
only to touch down in a hesitant heartland, a country bordered by
regret and fear, where everything's at stake. These 13 songs are sung
by people exhausted by the trials of their country, haunted by ghosts
of its promise, tentatively hopeful of renewal or reconciliation.
While the record doesn't shy from directly addressing the state of the
union (an early draft of Final Straw was made available for download
in protest against the invasion of Iraq), its strength lies in its
willingness to dramatise rather than hector, in its fearful sympathies
and quiet commitments.
Its secret motto might be Stipe's line from 1985: The thing to fear is
fearlessness. A key track here is The Outsiders, an eerie, spectral
dream-song swirled in misty synths, remembering a 'day that the music
stopped'. There's a storm coming, shadowy outsiders are gathering, and
the singer has to take sides, but he's 'lost in regret', fear 'all
across his face'. Fading out, his indecision is replaced by the
determination of a rapper summoning up the spirit of Martin Luther
King, repeating 'I am not afraid'. And suddenly, the song strikes a
new chord of memory, and you might hear in the title an echo of King's
letter from jail in 1963: 'Anyone who lives inside the United States
can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds'.
Yet many of the songs here are sung by outsiders wavering on the point
of becoming deserters. The Boy In The Well is a baleful, bushwhacked
cousin of Drive, its singer walking away from a town going wrong,
warning that the 'water is rising, you know what it's bringing...you
don't want to stay'. You can hear this note of exile and disgust in
the high weird grace of 'I Wanted To Be Wrong', sung by someone stuck
in a Yul Brynner Westworld where 'everyone is singing a song that I
don't understand'.
There are few upbeat moments on the record, which often recalls 1992s
Automatic For The People in its sobriety of purpose. There's the
crackling neon guitar on Electron Blue (a bad trip flip of
Electrolite), the oddly jaunty Wanderlust and the sweet Al Green blues
of The Ascent of Man. But it's not without hope. You might hear a hint
in the kitchen-sink drama of Aftermath where the radio stutters but
'some sour song, it sets it right', and cold comfort is found in
making hindsight sense of dread and grief.
But the closer, the title track, offers and ambiguous earthbound
prayer. It's a prayer against quitting, to the possibility of a voice
'strong enough to let me question what I see'. And when it fades out
with a ringing 'Let these dreams set me free', you have to wonder:
does the singer want to be free of the dreams? Is he exhausted by
their demands? Or are they the only thing keeping him going? Around
The Sun is rich enough to let you draw your own conclusions.
Stephen Trousse
Amen.
Ciao!
Vero - High Speed Train Jumpers #3
---
and that's what I always knew
I'd like to have hung the moon.

 tutto l'album... e poi non parte con "Since Bill Berry left.... " ;)
bella recensione, soprattutto interessanti le analisi dei testi che come
ha notato qualcuno in un altro thread per ora non abbondano, mentre come
questa recensione dimostra ce ne sarebbe da discutere...
Francesco
-- 
The outsiders are gathering, a new day is born.