I will say, I could not be more thrilled that my 20s are over. Of course, middle age has its issues, such as random achiness, expenses, and getting tired before 8:30 pm. But when I remember the various anxieties that plagued me a decade ago, I smile, knowing that the young person made it out of the darkness okay. And then, of course, I cringe at all the things they did while they were in the darkness.
But if I could share an album with that twenty-something in my past, I would certainly give them The Storm Is Over, the debut record from Madisine, aka Italian actor and songwriter Matteo Zanotti. I would tell him, “You know that Arctic Monkeys album you like, AM? The one you like to play when you’re either feeling really down on your luck or having someone over to spend the night, and are really drunk either way? This is like that album, and you’re gonna love it.” And my younger self would thank me before falling back asleep, even though it is noon and he has work in an hour.
In “ The Storm Is Over, Zanotti defines the adventures that he faced over the past few years of his life, during which he navigated the rough waters of being young but also on the threshold of adulthood. Topics on the record include living in and adapting to a new city, trying to hide past mistakes but making new ones, changing hearts, forming friendships, and learning how to grow up. Overall, it’s the work of an artist and a human at the cusp of a new era in his life, and certainly worth a listen for any other young person dreadfully facing the future.
“This record is about confronting myself – the parts I wanted to hide, the moments I broke, and the quiet relief of realizing the storm has finally passed,” Zanotti says about the record, which dropped this past November. Musically, Zanotti shows this wide emotional range, dipping the volume and tempo down when singing about withdrawal, making the heart race when he sings about anxiety or pleasure, and adding ethereal notes when a ray of sunlight shines through the storm clouds.
“YOU” opens the album with an anthem of anxiety about aging, addressing a “young and beautiful” subject of affection, and is unable to do anything more than “worrying about the worrying”. As a romantic and yet very fretful person, this song struck me as quite relatable even now. The feeling of time slipping away while still wreaking havoc upon us doesn’t fade easily.
The album charges into “Drain Love”, a blistering song about the cross-section of lust and love and the fear that builds up in that place. “You’re afraid of separation/I’m afraid of your eyes” opens the track, setting the tone in just two lines. When I was younger, I didn’t fear the prospect of something more than a physical relationship, but I didn’t know how to push things forward without making things weird, and yet things managed to get weird. Even though I’ve since gotten married, this song hits those old anxieties hard.
Things slow down on “Slow Down”, which describes the feeling of everything building up to a boiling point and having to face fears. On “Can you feel?”, Zanotti addresses part of his anxiety head-on, singing to the other side of a toxic relationship. The track builds up to a shoegaze-style fuzz. Most young people – myself included, back in the day – hated the prospect of having to end a relationship, even if it wasn’t working out. Minimizing stress and maximizing pleasure was always the goal. But between these two tracks, Zanotti describes the need to grow and push forward with doing what’s best for mental health in these situations: “I thought it was enough, but maybe I was wrong/And I feel safer inside when you’re outside my brain.”
And then, on “Full Frontal Cardio Dance”, Zanotti takes “maximizing pleasure” to the extreme, singing about using physical pleasure – dancing, sex, constant motion – to avoid the fears of growing up and becoming everything he hates. This track, along with “X_X”, most explicitly define the avenue of escape young people take to avoid stress or worry about the real world. Where “Full Frontal” describes physical pleasure, “X_X” is all about pleasure through substances. I had about a year or so of my twenties spent inside dark clubs and bedrooms, out of my mind, fearing the future but not conscious enough to care. When I came out of that coma, it was a rude awakening.
Zanotti brings up that moment of coming out of the fog on “Way Back” – “Lose control, but find your way back” – and “Myself” – “The man in the mirror’s looking different than the usual boy you used to know/’Cause sometimes I don’t even know myself.” It is never easy to reckon with the self-abuse and withdrawal at the moment when one has to grow up. God knows it wasn’t for me. But that feeling of self-realization is necessary, and though it is painful, it is important to work through the pain to get where you want to go.
But sometimes the reckoning never comes, and it takes a helping hand or two. “Where are you now?” is Zanotti channeling the call for help: “My mouth is bleeding black venomous liquid/I need a change in my heart/Where are you now? Are you cool now? Can you see me now, crawling down?” It reminds me of the story of the injured man trapped in the hole, where his friend jumps down with him. The man says, “You idiot, now we’re both stuck down here!” And his friend says, “Well, yeah, but I’ve been down here before, and I know the way out.” When someone is caught up in their feelings, unable to move past them, a friend taking the time to go down in the trench and help pull them out makes a world of difference.
“Between Fairies and Dogs” addresses generational trauma, which most young people come to realize at the moment of their transition into adulthood. Zanotti sings to his father and mother, calling out the former for being absent and praising his mother for carrying the burden of his pain. It’s fitting that this is the penultimate song on the album, after the long period of healing from the darkness and just before the clouds break on the title track, “The Storm Is Over”. But while the final track hints at the end of the troubles and anxieties and abuse that plague youth, the powerful final minutes of the song – and the album – ask “Is it over?” And it’s a fitting question, because even if the storm seems over, adulthood brings a new storm. Even if you feel prepared for it, having weathered the last one, you can’t know which way the winds will blow or how long you’ll be able to withstand it.
In these past few years, where I’ve left young adulthood behind, I’ve gone through such a new storm, but I’ve been thankful for being able to navigate it somewhat well (or at least without totally capsizing and drowning in the cold, murky waters of the Atlantic) But it’s made me think back to the past decade, where I didn’t have the tools to know how to steer my ship with the wind at my back. Now, even though I can sail better than before, the sea is still rough, and the wind and rain are still devilishly cold, and I’m always tempted to hide below deck and let the elements take me adrift. But I can’t let myself do that. There’s too much at stake now if I don’t have both hands on the wheel, despite the forces against me.
So I can only think back to my younger years and remind myself of the mistakes I made and the beatings I had to weather to get where I am now. And Zanotti has done a great job chronicling those emotions on The Storm Is Over, a great debut and worth a listen for anyone else feeling like they’re losing their grip and letting the water take them any which way, especially under. It’s important, despite everything, to find the strength to surface, take a breath, and get the sails back up, because the end of the storm – and the sunlight that follows – is not far away.
Written by Will Sisskind
