The album '21st Century Brain Damage' expresses through different characters and personalities the difficulty of life and survival in a crumbled and alienating metropolitan society. Different kinds of degradation and emotions take shape, connected to a fictitious and cynical world, which remains beautiful and worth fighting anyway (World is a fine place and worth fighting for - E. Hemingway). The album develops through two stages: in the first part (ProgressiveXperience pt1, I'm Alive, The Great Illusion, Ways Over The Edge) a more detached atmosphere is expressed, especially through lyrics, like a third person narration: a criticism of a metropolitan life in which the narrator does not seem to be part of this world. From the outside of this environment, the songs present an analytical photography to the listener. In the second part (Imaginary Heroes, Master Reflection, Ruins & Memories, Inner Silence, Carpe Diem), however, the narrative becomes more direct and personal, a dramatic paraphrase about the dangers of psychic infection in an age of massive development.
ProgressiveXperience - pt1
This song represents the formation of the first experiences of a life lived through the initiative of youth and anticipates somehow the meaning of the text of ProgressiveXperience pt2, presented in the first album "X".
It is about the first part of a journey during which everyone takes consciousness as a result of the experience lived [… and so I understood that the only thing that really matters was the experience lived through my youngish rush… matured day by day throughout my journey]
Also I'm Alive represents a link to "X", because the protagonist of One Day Wiser, "fallen" after a great disappointment, in this sequel proclaims his strength and ability to survive and to be still alive.
The lyrics of The Great Illusion summarize the main stages of this album. They are a clear description of those who are, in fact, some of the main 21st century brain damages.
The story of this song takes shape through an excited, chaotic rhythm; the riffs are repetitive and relentless as the thousands of noises in the world which crowd minds and devour thoughts. Today no one is master of his mind anymore: no longer able to focus, we can no longer think. There is always someone with a car, phone or television infesting air and imposing his own pain or joy.
Shortly before the end of the first part, the song expresses a sense of loss and constant hallucination, that often leads a man to the borders of his imagination, beyond the streets of his mind, along a path in which he can find a safe way, a way out, or probably nothing…
Taurus Littrow closes the first part of the album and sanctions the change of scene. This song pays tribute to one of the most brilliant adventures and one of the greatest achievements of mankind, the conquest of the Moon.
Imaginary Heroes
The lyrics talk about life and death: the song tries to express what you can feel or what remains of life when it ends. The narration, finally in the first persion form, makes us face the most universal truth: the fact that we are here, ageing day after day, waiting for something to happen. We need connectors, writers, heroes, guides to configure our lives, to reaffirm needs and memories and recall the magic of the safety of childhood.
The song takes us back to an ancient dimension: biblical quotations from the Old Testament make the text vigorous and full of strength. It, now narrated by a Superior Entity, looks through the eyes of man straight into his soul, passing through time from antiquity to the present day. Past ages of which only destroyed civilization remains now. Years and centuries and millenniums through which man has built and destroyed, written and handed down again.
History is what remains of empires, together with ancient ruins and memories: this sentence summarizes all that lyrics express below, the feeling that you get when someone leaves: emptiness and fear and powerlessness in the face of the inevitable developing of events.
Carpe Diem is a vigorous song, full of strength, in which the fighting and proud spirit of man proclaims its willingness to live its own destiny, to make its own history, to combat, to overcome sacrifices and pain in order to achieve its dreams…
The final theme into which the album glides is a collection of emotions and feelings almost unreal after the Carpe Diem frenetic solo.
A dreamy atmosphere and an acoustic arpeggio cut clean through track number 10 to make room for a guitar theme that almost imperceptibly gradually becomes a breath, and then dissolves in the metropolitan road traffic, leaving space for a last reflection before silence.
