Irony is a crucial weapon of post-modernism against the meaninglessness of contemporary life. And it’s where the uncomfortable feeling of the age of comfort abounds, that this bittersweet feeling flourishes at its best.
The place where Confine comes from, deep in the deepest suburbs of North-eastern Italy, is an ideal ground for this purpose. No side of the Belpaese feasted more cheerfully and more unscrupulously on the economic boom that arouse between the Sixties and the Eighites. And then, in the years of the crisis, this side of the Belpaese has become alienating in a very peculiar fashion that I believe none visually and textually pictured better than the project Padania Classics, some years ago.
Confine (literally: Border) try to describe –and maybe escape – that same cringe landscape, crowding it with bizarre and disturbing characters. Their gust of fresh hardcore combines touches of thrash metal, sludge, grind and melodic connections. And they nail it. In their new full length “RRR”, this well-balanced genre-blend becomes the effective vehicle of the album’s mood: a bucket of frustration ingrained with explosions of rage and touches of black humor, right in your face.
In the band’s own words:
“The ten tracks composing the album are the natural evolution of that constant uncertainty started many years ago, and that never left us. New figures peep out from the dark corners of narrow, poorly lit streets, they speak from a gap to the other in the walls of a pub’s bathroom, they whisper between the mattress and the pillow in full moon nights – and all of them are called by the same name. They wear thousand outfits and thousand faces, thousand hands, thousand staring eyes: eyes staring at each other, eyes staring at you. “RRR” is all about gazing, shipwrecks, falls, cycles repeating themselves in doubt.”
Their new single “Michael fa una cosa” (“Michael does one thing”) offers a good example of what you can expect from “RRR”. The sludgy intro lasts long enough to make you ask yourself what’s going on, then Confine hits you in the back with a blast of finely combined hardcore and funk riffs. The entire song sounds quite unpredictable and the absurd lyric makes the rest (“Where am I? Where’s upside? Where’s downside? I dissolve. I am fog. I reborn instead. In a grave. I don’t belong to”).
Formed near Venice in 2013, Confine mark with “RRR” the third step in their collection of full lengths. The album is available on the band’s Bandcamp profile, as well as all their previous releases.
CONFINE – “RRR”
Out on October 2019
Tracklist:
- Nettuno
- Giovanotto Documenti
- Spioncino
- Malgrado
- Medicina
- 30014
- Surf 4
- Michael Fa Una Cosa
- Yosemite/Sultano
- Confine R
Lineup:
Maximilian Goldberg – Vocals
Andrea Bottin – Guitar
Marco Tumiatti – Bass
Alessandro De Zanche – Drums
PS_ Before you go, here’s their video for the previous single “30014”, which I think you should enjoy.
