Tenia – Anime Sconvolte LP

Tenia – Anime Sconvolte LP

"The Milanese band’s second album, Anime Sconvolte (Distraught Souls), confirms the promise of their debut Altrove (Elsewhere),  demonstrating that it’s possible to find subtlety in the unforgiving aesthetic of hardcore.

Whereas Altrove transmuted the isolation of the pandemic into a message of defiance, Anime Sconvolte takes aim at a society that emerged from that rupture even more dysfunctional than before.

This is the Italy that could not prevent Giorgia Meloni’s Fratelli d’Italia party from taking control of the government despite widespread distaste for its postfascist platform.

Although Anime Sconvolte does not explicitly address this far-right turn, the band’s exclusively Italian lyrics succinctly capture the frustration of Italians who pursued a different path.

“C’è sempre freddo e piove fuori e dentro di me” (“It’s always cold and raining inside and outside of me” begins a song about the failure of optimism.

“Qui tutto è ostile” (“Here, everything is hostile”) concludes another about walking dead-end streets.

Throughout the album, we get the impression that these existential statements are inspired by the present conjuncture. The souls of its title are distraught because the hope of a better world is being ground to dust.

The intensity of Tenia’s music mirrors that process with dark irony.

Like Altrove, Anime Sconvolte inclines more towards metal than punk.

Zacca’s thundering drums set the tone, subduing Cosimo’s bass and Niccoló’s guitar to their relentless logic. Yet there is enough space in the songs to recall the mathy vibe of post-punk bands from the end of the Cold War, when alternative rock hadn’t quite gone mainstream.

Although Alvise sings himself hoarse, in the way hardcore vocalists so often do, he does an admirable job of keeping the lyrics from blurring together.

Indeed, that’s a quality that the entire band demonstrates. Their hardcore is never soft, but leaves enough room around the edges to give an impression of restraint.

Perhaps that is why Tenia opts to engage with the depressing reality of contemporary Italy indirectly rather than through agitprop sloganeering.

Tenia is fighting a battle for hearts and minds, and going left broadly is always more effective than fighting minor sectarian battles. And more memorable, too.

The band’s dramatic aesthetics drive its message home more effectively. This is hardcore, after all, not emo.

It’s possible to regard Anime Sconvolte as a call to arms, but it’s not necessary to do so. That makes the album all the more subversive.

The priority is to invite reflection, helping listeners to perceive their own stream of consciousness rather than having it drowned out by the deafening noise of the corporate media.

Loud hardcore songs promoting quiet contemplation might seem like a paradox. But Tenia makes the contrast work."- Charlie Bertsch / The Battleground