Review: NoWhiteRag – Resilience

Here we go, it is out. I waited for it, I collected every single piece of preview. And finally it’s here, the new album by NoWhiteRag, ‘Resilience’.

Maybe it’s just the period, but it is an autumnal album, a winter album. I imagine myself pressing play while outside it’s raining, while outside everything is covered in fog, and I will be carried away by the rage, the understanding of not being alone, the energy that comes out from the album, from these 15 songs, from Zanna’s voice.

It starts fast, with I fiori degli schiavi’, and you already know what to expect from this recording. The second song is the title track ‘Resilience’, which I personally love  – I’ve already listen to it ten times – and with lyrics such as resilience is heading, holding my will, I’m alive’ or ‘He dreamt a revolution, a safer place to go, just booze and punk rock, boycott and revolt’, you know you have found a kindred soul. Then it’s time for ‘Come a Kobane’, which I’ve already listen to it live, and well, there’s nothing to say, you need to listen to it. ‘E come a Kobane, no Pasaran!’.

The songs are both in Italian and English, languages used for fast songs, less fast songs, but always with some rage ready to explode, to convey that sense of resistance that’s inside us, that keeps us alive, that runs in our blood.

Other songs, other rage, let’s move on with ‘Love and Rage’, of course, and then ‘Vomito sul Mondo’, and let’s push more, let’s play again, the fast sound, the scratchy voice, outside is still dark ‘but I still feel the same old rage anyway’. And so it goes, we have already reached half album, and it goes, smooth, every sound so well played, every scream so powerful, every moments makes you feel that punk is not only ‘noise’ but it is meaning, rebellion, resistance, fight, pride, sharing. I discovered NoWhiteRag by chance, in 2008, ten years ago, with the album Nothing Left, (the one with Society Makes Me Sick), and I still don’t know what, maybe the name, maybe the sound… well, they strike a chord in me. After ten years, I finally saw them live. And I loved them. And now this album, which is, of course, more mature, more elaborated, but the rage is the same, that feeling of destroying society, the willing of sharing this with all the punx, is still the same.

And so it goes the last half of the album, we burn with ‘The Sin Pyre’, we walk on dark alleys with ‘I Lavoratori della Notte’, we continue to walk and live with con ‘The Black List’ and ‘No Reason Why’, and we pray with ‘La Tragedia delle Certezze’.

Then I reach the last song, with a tormented harmonica played by Steno of Nabat, it’s actually starting to rain, with a street song, a song to scream, suffering, ‘It’s Going to Rain’. As the title track, the song that closes the album needs to be heard repeatedly, to capture all the shades, to capture that sweetness that exist in every revolution.

Do I really need to grade this album? I will say 10. I know, perfection doesn’t exist, but I don’t fucking care! The album is great, everything is worthy, from the music to the voice, from the artwork to the lyrics. And so? Well, so, let’s go to buy a copy because this album deserves more than 10!

 

‘E nei vulcani, io brucerò,

nelle tempeste io ci sarò,

Di altre vite ma che ne sai,

io non ho dio né ora né mai.’

 

GRADE: 10