Silk is the second album by Dropshard. After the release of the first album Anywhere but Home and a plenty of concerts around Northern Italy and beyond, the band concentrates on writing and composing a new project. The album is the result of a long gestation period of over 3 years and an half which shows the growth and maturity of the band.
The original idea comes from wanting to tell an hypothetical city where they meet and clash of different places. The disc is developed as a journey whose stages are never physical locations and/or materials, but rather places of human soul. The band decided not to use the formula of the concept album adopted for the previous album because in this new location every place results in an emotion or state of mind that needs to be told using different musical languages. So in this new LP we can listen to different genres, from rock to pop, from hard rock to progressive, from electronic music to acoustic music even choral music. Despite being very strong and pronounced willingness to experiment and use different genres the band’s sound never loses its own identity, rather it strengthens and pulls out exactly everything that they are able to do and express themselves avoiding any limit or constraint.
The album does not follow almost never a logical, because it wants to address what is the reality of everyday life, in which randomness plays an important role, often decisive. Each song is like a snapshot of a movie that opens with a prologue, Insight, in which a hypothetical protagonist seems to have reached the end of its journey. The bus stop, which would say the French ethnologist and anthropologist Marc Augé is a non-place, is transformed into a moment of reflection in which we are forced to rethink the way done and to be fully aware of what we had to come up to this point, go ahead and take new paths. The time of reflection fades quickly, to arrival of the new bus, a metaphor for a new road, a new possibility and the sight of a possible future, the past evaporates like the puddles in the sun.
Eyes talks about the impossible and place of belonging is once abstract and belongs to the sphere of irrationality, in which the dream and imagination mingle with reality trying to bully. When this’ final ruling comes from the clash inner off any kind of illusion and the body, now devoid of any emotion, falls to the ground helpless, meat disillusioned.
Cell 342 is still the same emotions of the previous track or irrationality. The song, which at first glance might seem almost didactic, is the subject of madness in a very controversial and sometimes irreverent. In this new place that is a hypothetical cell asylum is a fascinating party game in which the patient goes from aggressor to be attacked, weakened and brought dying from drugs administered to by doctors. The human being cries out desperately and vindicates his normal asking the doctor to remove her gown (symbol which plays the role of a separator between physician and cared for), thus eliminating any kind of hierarchy. After all no one is really crazy, but at the same time we are a bit all.
With Tied Together the reason and irrationality are mixed. The song is autobiographical and speaks of the difficulties that the band has faced in the last three years. This results in music with the first part very dark, sometimes resigned, tired, stressed and angry and a second part described by colors much lighter, delicate and seraphic where reflection leads to the understanding and resolution of problems and where compromise clears the dull personal pride and gives light to the common good.
With Seat back to the world of non-places; the protagonist, who arrived at an airport, falls asleep and rest histired body; he retun a child mesmerized by the flying planes. While the sleep obscures the reality, the dream world takes space represented by the following passage.
Perpetual Dream is, as the title suggests, a perpetual dream, a metaphor for everyday life and the game of habits which numbs the body and especially the spirit. The song urges to wake the mind, to make their own choices and what is right for us. The thought makes you free.
The next track is the natural consequence of the dream, or waking up. Get Out And Run is a completely instrumental track, where the voices through the few words of the text deliberately difficult to understand, weave a rug that goes to mingle with other acoustic instruments. This track is the music and its hustle and not the words to describe what is happening, or escape from a world that no longer belongs to us.
We come then to the endless road, The Endless Road, which is nothing more than a description of all that the mind refuses. The road then becomes a place of purification where the main character looks with a critical eye and rejects the society around him, claiming once again free will. At the end of this winding road we come to the most spiritual place on the disc.
Less is More: is a kind of otherworldly limbo in which there is nothing. In this sort of timeless desert are a robot, only the memory and witness of the past and his metallic voice comes out of the will of a company that wanted to change the world.
Maya comes from an important experience that the band was lucky enough to make that meeting with the guys from “Our Family” Bosisio Parini. The site told in this song is that of discomfort, trauma and difficulties faced by children to whom life has asked them to become adults before their time. This song is dedicated to all of them.
The disc ends with Memento, a track closely related to the famous film by Christopher Nolan, and deals with the place of memory and its fleeting nature. The text speaks of memories and the relationship that we have with them, which is not always the true picture of our past, but often shaped by our own will become counter-image of our desires. The topic is particularly thorny because it forces us to reflect on a seemingly simple question. Memories are the only thing that keeps us connected to our past and despite being an instrument are quite powerful at the same time fragile, confused and often liars. It is up to us and what we feel deep down take the right path and make the right choices; memories, as well as photographs and any other object that connect us to our lives lie shamelessly; are nothing more than a projection of our mental and material desires.
The album, before the actual closing, it gives a little surprise… you just need to listen and let us know what you think.