L’implacabile sondaggione del lunedì ha declassato l’espressione “sfumature di grigio” all’ultimo posto, con un coefficiente-dignità dello 0,53%. Peggio di “trucco e parrucco” (0,59), “impiattare” (0,62) e “frappuccino” (0,68).
Che fare, per risollevarne le sorti? Io la butto lì. Dalla cellulosa ai padiglioni: riprendiamoci tutti il 1996 e delle “shades of grey” con i controcoglioni. Anzi, gray. Siamo pur sempre sull’altra sponda dell’Atlantico.
Gestazione difficile, quella della razza grigia. Il perché lo sanno tutti: Brett Partitaiva Gurewitz saluta accigliato e si smezza tra rehab e fatture; Il PhD ugola d’oro deve dimostrare di essere cool e punk nonostante la media eroina drammaticamente bassa. C’è l’incognita Baker, rincalzo di gran lusso, che ha declinato la pingue proposta dei R.E.M.: riuscirà a inserirsi nel gruppo? O, almeno, l’ago nel braccio? Infine, all’orizzonte si addensano le fosche nubi di una major, già accollatesi la pubblicazione di un troppo radiofonico “Stranger than Fiction”.
Insomma, la domandona è una: viste le traversie della formazione e la Atlantic, suonerà ancora punk, “The Gray Race”?
La risposta è sì. La razza grigia è un disco bellissimo che, pur sottratto all’egida di mamma Epitaph, conosce momenti davvero unici. Un deciso passo in avanti rispetto al pur pregevole lavoro precedente che, fra ospitate e singoloni acchiappa cash, pareva l’anticamera dell’armageddon.
Via gli arrangiamenti “allegri” di “Stranger than Fiction”: l’atmosfera è plumbea, cupa, malinconica.
Grigia, appunto.
Chitarrismo abrasivo e lo-fi che, in più di un’occasione, strizza l’occhio a “Suffer”.
E in Suffa la titletrack ci sarebbe stata benissimo, perché nei suoi 126 secondi sferza con incazzoso orgoglio, sapendo di far male. Un’elegia disillusa e triste. Il tema è attualissimo: l’uomo, ebbro di emozionali sfumature – d’infinite “scale di grigi” – mortifica la sua complessità nell’aut aut del bianco/nero.
- Cosa c’è di più mesto, in effetti, del bianconero? Il mio veniva da Cosenza, conosciuto ieri. Considerava Sculli ‘un rimpianto’. No, dico, Sculli. El pibedelocri. Mavabbé -
L’umanità proteiforme si banalizza nell’avvilente linguaggio degli strumenti che confeziona. Il codice binario, i premi di maggioranza, la condivisione sui social (vista sempre come un fine, mai come un mezzo), l’ottimistica e superficiale codificazione illuministica: frigide dicotomie che non riescono ad apprezzare le infinite proiezioni dell’intelletto creatore.
Dato di fatto: abbiamo apparecchiato il mondo come una roulette. Esce il rosso esce il nero. Cinico, ma indubbiamente pragmatico. Efficace, istintivo. Pari agli animali, che attaccano o fuggono. Dormono o cercano cibo. Sono o non sono in calore, ma non fanno l’amore.
Di qui il dilemma: per realizzarsi nel suo mondo, che deve fare l’uomo? Crogiolarsi nella splendida inefficienza del suo spettro emozionale o adottare un atteggiamento più cinico e istintivo, riducendo ogni complessità a un asettico bivio?
La contrapposizione manichea di valori e ideali è, ad ogni modo, il filo conduttore dell’intera opera: dalle censure al razzismo (“Them and Us”) all’esaltazione dello spirito libero che sfida l’establishment (“A Walk”, “Punk Rock Song”), passando per l’incomunicabilità delle esperienze (“Parallel” – reprise di “Best for You”), il proselitismo interessato (“Come Join Us”) e l’ipocrisia di chi crede sempre di poter salvare il mondo (“Spirit Shine”, con evidenti rimandi al “brother christian whose actions speak too loud” di “I Want to Conquer the World”). Contrapposizioni che, manco a dirlo, sono l’eloquente strascico della profonda frattura che ha interessato i membri della band.
La genesi “tormentata” del disco rivela anche negli arrangiamenti una vera e propria doppia anima: le abrasioni chitarristiche figlie del surf-punk (“Ten in 2010”, “Nobody Listens”) si stemperano nell’intimismo dei testi e nella dolcezza malinconica delle linee vocali (“Victory”, “Drunk Sincerity”), delineando la confidenza di Greg Graffin con il folk, suggellata in “American Lesion” l’anno seguente.
Ma la profonda emotività non snatura il prodotto. Brian Baker si rivela all’altezza del ruolo, portando con sé Dag Nasty (leggi “The Gray Race” e pensi a “Can I Say”) e un po’ di Minor Threat: finalizza gli assist ritmici del mai troppo rimpianto Hetson (unico appunto: forse assoli un po’ troppo simili, con l’immancabile coda di ottave) e supporta Graffin nel canto dell’apocalisse quotidiana.
Il sommo vate del Wisconsin ce l’ha fatta anche da solo: pacato, sempre a suo agio, al di là del bene e del male, scrive l’ennesima grande pagina del suo vangelo laico. Nichilismo commosso e partecipato, ma anche consapevole della sua essenza. Le vanaglorie del mondo potranno traviarci, infiammarci i suoi ideali, ma non ci si deve far irretire dagli ebbri incantesimi del carneade di turno: non siamo immortali. Né noi, né le nostre idee. Tantomeno le nostre promesse. Le forze entropiche ci spingeranno nell’abisso, cullati dalla pace eterna dell’oblio: tutto – la quotidianità effimera dell’erba, la superbia millenaria dell’impero – deve cessare.
Sì, “Cease” nel lotto è il fuoriclasse, il fantasista che non ti aspetti. Dell’etica e dello stile badreligioniani è raffinatissimo compendio.
Summa della filosofia punk tutta, si esalta nei suoi fendenti chitarristici e nell’epilessia finale degli assoli, prima di addormentarsi definitivamente, anticamera del caos eterno, lasciandoti con due ancestrali interrogativi:
- Quanto male deve volersi uno per incidere “Punk Rock Song” in tedesco?
- Perché Brett ha fondato quella cagata dei Daredevils? No perché il professore da solo è bravo ma poi ti ritrovi a pogare con cose tipo “proclami te stesso esperto grazie alle particolareggiate inferenze delle tue divulgazioni”. Ma un “Fuck the system”? No eh?
Elenco tracce testi e video
01 The Gray Race (02:06)
the framework of the world
is black and white
the infrastructure builders
flex their might
turning true emotion
into digital expression
one by one we all fall down
the gray race shrivels
trapped inside the world it creates
it's black and white
the perputual destructive
motion machine
began to chart a course
never before seen
turning raw compassion
into fields of plus and minus
one by one we all give in
the gray race shrivels
trapped inside the world it creates
it's black and white
I'd swear there were times when I was someone else
a person with determination and knowledge of the self
but you flattened me to rubble and now I can see that I'm
just a faded negative of the image I used to be
and that's our dilemma
03 A Walk (02:09)
I'm going for a walk
not the after dinner kind
I'm gonna use my hands
and I'm gonna use my mind
and who the hell are you to tell me what to do?
you can't even tie your own haggard shoes
your closet is a mess, and your backyard's falling down
and I have no grand ideas or intentions of sticking around
I'm gonna build a world
independent and exempt
all alone I'll be an empire
with no mortgage and no rent
and I don't need to live in your stinking zoo
you can't even feed the animals donated to you
your storage sheds are ramshackled, flies decorate the walls
and you expect me to die here in this shit filled tiny stall?
and I know you're watching! everything I do
call me threat to your children call me socially unglued
call me master of insanity, unable to relate
call me lazy, bane, and filthy
call me monstrous reprobate
I'm going for a walk and there's nothing you can do
'cuz I don't have to live like you
so I'm going for a walk
04 Parallel (03:24)
sleeping on a time bomb, staring into space
there's an ocean of unpleasantries we are not prepared to face
sitting on the fence post to watch the storm roll in
and terrified of the damage it will bring when it begins
it will begin
splintered dreams of unity (our lives are parallel)
so far from reality (our lives are parallel)
independent trajectories (our lives are parallel)
separate terms of equality (our lives are parallel)
our lives are parallel
is there no redemption? no common good?
is there nothing we can do for ourselves? or only what we should?
comes the hard admission of what we don't provide
goes the insistence on the ways and means that so divide
they so divide
side by side suffering loneliness (our lives are parallel)
phony collective progress (our lives are parallel)
accepting that it's all such a mess (our lives are parallel)
gesturing without hope of redress (our lives are parallel)
our lives are parallel
forging little plays of deception and pain
as we watch our foundation crumble away
staggering like birds against a hurricane
and trying all the while to stay out of each other's way
broken dreams of unity (our lives are parallel)
independant trajectories (our lives are parallel)
screaming out for understanding (our lives are parallel)
turning inward and suffering (our lives are parallel)
06 Empty Causes (02:51)
Everywhere you looked there was confusion, violence, drama and drugs
So many righteous revolutionaries spouting utopian love
Everyone shrouded in purple haze
Then one day they woke up from their dream state
They found themselves no more at peace than before older, meek, and conformed
Empty causes
A bluster for the soul, a fix for their mind
Empty causes
Cling to everything you find
Well, the shots rang out like popcorn and the Chief was hit and rushed out of sight
The mohawk-chain, leather brigade rejoiced maliciously on that night
Someone cried out "fuck the government"
His mates couldn't define what he meant
So no one gave him the time of day and the scene died away
Empty causes
A war for the body, an army in the mind
Empty causes
Losing steam as time goes by
Could it be that everybody selfishly desires their own personal retinue
And that causes are just manifestations of too much time and far to little to do
Let's go
Empty causes
Direction for the soul, conviction for the mind
Empty causes
Cling to all, everything you find
Empty causes
A war for the body, an army in the mind
Empty causes
You've got yours and I've got mine
All right
09 Spirit Shine (02:11)
shed a tear for the criminal, give him something to believe
light a fire for the miserable, give the darkness some meaning
closed wounds harbor pestilence, when you lick them from within
charity has a redolence chastity cannot rescind
spirit shine, it's a sign
of a tortured mind (troubled mind)
spirit shine all the time
can render you blind
you can take it all to heart or throw it all away
You can call it just a lark or live your life that way
you can give until you're dry and sucked of all your gleam
you can fake another cry and compromise your dream
cling tight to the parable - let it dominate your life
create a God who's infallible - give your leader some respite
closed wounds harbor pestilence - when you lick them from within
rosy smiles lose their radiance - when you take it on the chin
11 Ten in 2010 (02:22)
Parched, cracked mouths, empty swollen guts
Sun baked pavement encroaches on us
Haves and have nots together at last
Brutally engaged in mortal combat
10 in 2010
10 in 2010
What kind of God orchestrates such a thing? (10 in 2010, 10 in 2010)
Ten billion people all suffering (10 in 2010, 10 in 2010)
Truth is not an issue just hungry mouths to feed (10 in 2010, 10 in 2010)
Forget what you want, scrounge the things you need (10 in 2010, 10 in 2010)
10 in 2010
10 in 2010... ok
Happy and content it can't happen to you (10 in 2010, 10 in 2010)
Fifteen years we'll think of a solution (10 in 2010, 10 in 2010)
It won't just appear in one day (10 in 2010, 10 in 2010)
For 10 in 2010 we're well on our way (10 in 2010, 10 in 2010)
10 in 2010
10 in 2010
Like piercing ear darts, I heard the news today
10 billion people...coming your way
(10 in 20)
10 in 20
10 in 2010...
12 Victory (02:36)
the velveteen and oaken fixtures soothed the lonely child
the parents watched the escort take him while they stood outside
the priest was kind and gentle as he positioned his head
the pain was like brimstone, but the kid hardly bled
victory
instinct over intellect
victory
it erupts from deep inside
history
history is laughing at us
plotting its discovery
victory, victory
blame it on the victory
among the parade crowd there stands a decorated man
remembering how he helped to save this sacred land
his helpless enemy was wounded, both hands raised with hope
he killed him without second thought, with brute force and a rope
so many times, so many lives
test the other side
waiting to see what the maker has in mind
the unsuspecting commoners hum diligent each day
they wallow in their father's sins, as time passes away
the crimes are without motive but they ignore all restraint
the evil sits inside them torpid timing its escape
13 Drunk Sincerity (02:13)
the smell of virgin pages wafted through the swinging doors
and the croaking speech he'd heard from countless counselors before
they said "We all care for you, we know how you suffer
but I know you can succed, I used to have it so much rougher."
there's hope in the words and emotion in the eyes
it's so easy to be misled by the savvy gentle guise
and like fools we trust the delivery
but it's all just drunk sincerity
it is all just drunk sincerity
In maternal family assembly poised regarding the blue tube
the numbers crept up higher and the hawks stayed out of view
then the generals said "we dont want our boys dead
your sons and your husbands will be coming back heroes soon"
there's hope in the words and emotion in the eyes
it's so easy to be misled by the savvy gentle guise
and like fools we trust the delivery
but it's all just drunk sincerity
it is all just drunk sincerity
with steam, heat, and rhythm in the back seat of the car
and adolescent perspective projecting life's forecast to the stars
you heard love from the lips and you were rapt by the hips
and the promise was eternal but you couldn't see that far
there's hope in the words and emotion in the eyes
it's so easy to be misled by the savvy gentle guise
and like fools we trust the delivery
but it's all just drunk sincerity
it is all just drunk sincerity
it is all just drunk sincerity
it is all just drunk sincerity
15 Cease (02:35)
blacktop pavement cover me
like a chemical reaction or a steam roller
spreading randomly
there's a distant buzz and a low frequency
it tickles my ear, it rumbles under my feet
and it shakes the leaves off of every tree (violently)
what pretension! Everlasting peace
everything must cease
institution on the Hill
like a beacon in the mind of an ancestor
to ignite a people's will
there's a shadowed stain on the west facade
it has spread like decay to enshroud the fraud
and the descendants find oh so odd
(oh so odd)
what pretension! Everlasting peace
everything must cease
grave memorial hewn white stone
like the comforting caress of a mother
or a friend you've always known
it evokes such pain and significance
what was once is reduced to remembrance
and the generations pass without recompense
what pretension! Everlasting peace
everything must cease
Carico i commenti... con calma
