Area - 'Crac!' (Cramps)

Is this actually a slight step backwards? I mean, it's awesome for sure, but a bit more restrained compared to the electronic mind-fuckery of it's precedent. The experimentation seems slightly more relegated to the details here; with headphones there's some insane dressing on these salads but not as much meat, y'know? Except for the last song, which is a goofy, lurching stop-start debacle, Crac! is very much a 'prog rock' album. I'm not complaining - I guess Area decided to make Crac! a more "guts" album, and as I listen I can't stop tapping my feet (in 27/9 time) and grooving on it anyway. Demetrio is in fine form, blasting away on the opening track and doing some weird American-accented vocalising on 'La Mela di Odessa (1920)' (which it fits the funk-horn stomp). Ares Tavolazzi's basso elettrico is not just played funkier than before, but it has that somewhat "boingy" quality that you expect from progressive rock. Some of these riffs are epic, and some of the melodies are actually catchy. In "Gioia e Rivoluzione" Area present an actual "pop" song - with acoustic guitar strum, bouncy bassline, and relatively accessibly singing, but I don't think they're selling out - just taking their message of revolution politicalVOCALmusic to a larger audience. So yeah, not my favorite, but bonus points because a 30-year old (perfectly preserved) sticker of the 4xegg cover image fell out of the jacket.