Almost Zero is
the second May7's studio album, released on 18 July 2013. The album was
named after one of the most difficult concepts in mathematics, the one
referring to operations involving zero. Zero is far from being
"nothing". It is somehow a value, though this can be difficult
to explain and understand.
Lyrically, the album contains
references to love, life, death, literature and classical mythology.
Recording sessions took place
during different periods (May 2009 to December 2012) and the development
of the album delayed the release date several times. This because of the
wish to explore experimental styles, in the attempt to make almost every
song on the album sound different from the others. As a consequence of
this approach the atmospheres of the songs spread from retro-pop to
alternative rock.
The artwork for Almost Zero
was designed by May7. The design style for the album took very few days to
be completed and it was decided after the writing of the first couple of
songs (Bluetale and Tomorrow Never Came), at the time when
the general idea of the album was being conceived. The minimalist approach
represented, in a way, a sort of starting point and what the album had to
be.
Irony, energy, disillusion and a mix
of musical influences are some of the ingredients of May7's debut album All
Conditions Clear, released on 7 May 2008.
While the different atmospheres
and digressions into different genres take you back and forth the last 30
years, the lyrics provide a still-image of the disenchanted approach of a
generation that looks at the future with no particular hope and that only
intends to capture the mysterious hidden in life.
Fall opens the tracklist
with strength and energy while revealing the double-meaning veins
contained in the album. Blind Hole is the shout in a period of
confusion characterized by the paradoxical loss of true religions messages
in a context of absurd fundamentalisms, All Conditions Clear an
ironic statement in the middle of a great confusion while The Best Of
Your Repertory tells of underground stories and places hidden below
the surface of the city.
Still Here works over the
magic and power of Love whose mysterious ways can lead to freedom or
slavery. Fairytale, which in some ways recalls Beatles suggestions
and themes mixed with RHCP-like guitar riffs, is the ballad of a young
girl, of her dreams and of her melancholy discovery of the truths hidden
in all the childhood tales where apparent dark and bizarre metaphors were
always inspired by real life situations and characters. No Clue, Able,
Once, Searching The City and That's The Way It Goes
are all about metropolitan contemporary contradictions and tensions mixed
with a sense of lucid resignation.
