Con Fever Dreams Pts 1-4 , Johnny Marr ha voluto fare le cose in grande e realizzare un ampio e ambizioso corpus, che racchiudesse tutte...
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JOHNNY MARR - FEVER DREAMS Pts 1 - 4 (BMG, 2022)
With
Fever Dreams Pts 1-4 , Johnny Marr wanted to go big and create a large and ambitious corpus, which encompasses all the facets of his music. He himself remarked: ā
I wanted this album to sound classic and universal. That's how I felt. I wanted to look inside myself, but make music that was truly outward facing ā. What to say? Mission accomplished, Mr. Marr. Yes, because the fourth solo album of the former Smiths guitarist is emotional, moving, straightforward, variegated, splendid astral conjunction between melodic taste, experimental will and the usual rock 'n' roll swagger. A record in which you can grasp the elements of his previous work, "
Playland"of 2014, the familiarity of a unique touch, some glimmer of ancient Eighties glory; yet, despite the immediate recognition,
Fever Dreams , more than any other album, contains a new wave of sonic expression.
At first listening, the impression is that of a work that is a bit disconnected, at times confused: too many seventy minutes in duration, too many ideas and styles elaborated in ways that are sometimes conflicting with each other. Yet, listening after listening, the album acquires cohesion, inspiration and unity of purpose emerge. But Marr is Marr, he has forty years of career behind him and an extremely lucid vision on the world of music, and therefore, let's face it, he can do whatever he likes. And above all, hit the target.
The opening track, "
Spirit, Power And Soul" , perfectly explains the vision, the interlocking between old and new, and reflects the mood on which the entire set was created. Marr describes it as "
electro gospel ": it is an intriguing and daring hymn, a burst of creativity emphasized by Johnny's contagious guitar patterns and a New Order rhythm, which evokes the militancy of Marr in Electronic together with Bernard Summer.
The first part continues with "
Reciever" , which begins with a dark and heavy guitar riff, and then turns into a dance-pop melody, with "
All These Days" , which has a 90s Britpop sound, and with "
Ariel " (from the name of a poem by Sylvia Plath), a jewel poised between an electronic beat and a captivating melody shaped by Marr's solar twelve strings.
The second part sounds more familiar, the guitarist gives in to nostalgia and pays homage to the fans, evoking classic sounds polished by the usual modern vision ("
Lightning People" , "
Hideaway Girl" and the hymn "
Tenement Time" ).
The third part includes "
Night And Day" , one of the disc's masterpieces, a song in perfect balance between Marr's most classic jangle and the experimental thrust of the previous solo work: irresistible melodic hook, euphoric mood, but a militant and political text , which photographs the summer of 2020 and how the pandemic intersected with the murder of George Floyd and the arrival of Black Lives Matter
. mood explodes ").
The last part of the disc kicks off with "
God's Gift" , which has an irresistible melodic swagger, and continues with the electronic plots of "
Goster" and with "
The Whirl" , another jewel of creativity, inlay of liquid guitars on a powerful and pounding riff.
Fever Dreams Pts 1-4 ends with "
Human" , the best song of the disc, in which simplicity is central again, a liberating and cathartic inspiration, the final and finally intimate port, where to land after a long journey. The journey of an artist who was able to shrug off a past, as glorious as it is cumbersome, and regenerate himself in search of his own identity.
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