Day: March 22, 2018

When, in 2014, an album like Inner Tales came out, it was immediately apparent that we were facing the epiphany of a unique and crystalline talent like that of the very young Calabrian musician Federica “Lenore” Catalano. It remained only to confirm the good things already shown in that moment and it was worth the time to have waited for a long time before listening to the sequel of that beautiful record: All Things Lost On Earth is a work that reconciles with the gothic marked by female voice whoever had in flee this type of solution. Yes, because here there is nothing obvious and planned at the table, just a dozen beautiful songs, performed by a singer with a particular voice and personal, helped by a perfect band in their role of robust and, at the same time, atmospheric support. In the sound of Lenore S. Fingers flows an inevitable series of influences from different bands, but having as a common denominator the ability to produce music full of melancholy transport (Novembre, Katatonia, The Gathering was Anneke, above all), and from this comes a sound that produces the result far from obvious not to resemble a specific model. All Things Lost On Earth is a work that possesses the strength to withstand an initial triplet of songs so beautiful that it would make the continuation of any other tracklist superfluous: My Name Is Snow is a sort of intro, with Federica’s voice resting on the instrumental carpet created by guest Anna Murphy (another wonderful performer who provides her valuable contribution to the album only in instrumental form, through keyboards and a traditional instrument like the hurdy-gurdy), followed by Lakeview’s Ghost, with its superlative chorus and a final acceleration that leads to Rebirth, a song of poignant beauty in every aspect. So Ever After, with its lighter pace, acts as an ideal buffer between the first part of the album and the final one, together with the more elaborate Luciferines, the only track in which parts are sung in Italian, and the “november-like” Epitaph. The intense My Schizophreniac Child recovers the emotional impact imperceptibly waned in the songs just mentioned, leading to the dreamy Decadence Of Seasons, a song in which Federica gives chills in profusion, replicated in good part in the more airy title track, and entrusting the closure to the short and darker Ascension, the final worthy of a disc of great value. The Lenore S. Fingers have lost most of those doom nuances put on display at the debut, coming to a gothic full of that pathos missing from most of the albums attributable to the same area, often perfect from the formal point of view but obvious in the solutions and unable to communicate empathetically with the listener; Federica and his companions open us, instead, the doors of a microcosm in which reigns a soft melancholy, far from both the despair of the most extreme forms of doom, both from the emphasis of the symphonic traits of the most commercial gothic: a disc so deep, intense and at the same time delicate, could arise only from the encounter between the sad disenchantment of the gothic dark Nordic matrix and the Mediterranean warmth, able to melt the ice turning it into liberating tears.

2018 – My Kingdom Music