Zero

After listening to their third album, it is clear to me just how great Bluvertigo's discography is. Album after album, they elevated their level, slowly incorporating more electronic influences that culminated onto this project.

"Zero, ovvero la famosa nevicata dell'85" (Zero, or the famous snowfall of '85) fully shows Morgan's love for David Bowie, and here in particular his Berlin era from 1977 to 1979. Not only is there a great cover of 'Always Crashing in the Same Car' from the album 'Low', one of the mixers on this project was David Richards, who produced some of his albums from 1987 onwards. The album also heavily incorporates elements of Bowie's collaborations with Trent Reznor (of NIN) from the 90s. In fact, while on the previous album 'Metallo non metallo' we can find more laid back electronic segments inspired by the likes of Aphex Twin, here we can find several industrial segments and punchy, cold instrumentals all throughout meant to resemble the snowfall from the subtitle of the album. Lastly, but not in terms of importance, Franco Battiato is a glaring and very present influence, especially for his prog era and his synth-pop voyage during the mid-80s. He is also present in the songs themselves as a singer, in 'Sovrappensiero' and 'Punto di non arrivo'.

The lyrical content is just as surreal and complex as it is in the rest of Bluvertigo's discography, with themes such as depression, alienation, and of course, philosophy, though it is not abstract enough to make it a chore to understand. And even inside all of this experimentation, we can find some more 'pop' songs, such as the main singles 'La crisi' (which I adore, and is probably my favorite song) and 'Sono = Sono'. Despite their status as 'pop' songs, they do not ruin the experience of the record and instead elevate it by giving even the average listener something to love.

This album was misunderstood upon release and is still misunderstood or ignored, even though it is one of the greatest things Italy made in the past 30 years. To make it worse, these guys never breached the nation's walls, and therefore are unknown to outsiders! So instead of listening to the same 50 year old songs and the occasional Eurovision contestants, please take some time out of your day to check this out, because it truly deserves attention.

'Zero, ovvero la famosa nevicata dell'85' was published in 1999 through Mescal Records. Bluvertigo were Marco 'Morgan' Castoldi, Andrea 'Andy' Fumagalli, Livio Magnini, and Sergio Carnevale.