SHINING

After the promising 2006 debut, in 2011 RanestRane released another self-produced double album conceived as a cine-concerto. This time the starting point is The Shining, a 1980 psychological horror film produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick, co-written with novelist Diane Johnson, and starring Jack Nicholson in the role of Jack Torrance. The film is based on the 1977 novel of the same name by Stephen King and is set in an isolated hotel in the mountains of Colorado. It tells the story of a man who tries to murder his wife and his son but the line between the supernatural and the psychotic is blurred... "What, exactly, is impelling Jack Torrance toward murder in the winter- isolated rooms and hallways of the Overlook Hotel? Is it undead people, or undead memories? Mr. Kubrick and I came to different conclusions... but perhaps those different conclusions are, in fact, the same. For aren't memories the true ghosts of our lives? Do they not drive all of us to words and acts we regret from time to time?" (Stephen King from the introduction to the 2001 Pocket Books Edition of the novel).

"I'm an engine rediscovering the limits... I'm rediscovering the effort, and the bruises...". The lyrics depict a damned diary of insanity, a mind that gives in under the weight of the snow, drinking the waters of oblivion... The melodic sung parts alternate with evocative instrumental passages and some excerpts from the dialogues of the film with a very good result. The music is more aggressive than in the band's debut work and sometimes tension hangs over you like a cloud full of black rain, pregnant, ready to burst. But in other moments the music becomes soft and sweet and mellow, following you down into a deeper sleep where thought ceases and the faces that come in dreams go unremembered... "You'll savor the waters of oblivion! / Hedges and corridors, bright red all around...".

Well, I like very much both the novel and the film. In my opinion the musical and lyrical interpretation of RanestRane is quite good as well... The packaging is excellent too and the art cover reproduces a painting by Zdzislaw Beksinski that perfectly fits the mood of this work.