Quartiere Coffee - La Mia Terra (La Tempesta Dischi)

As with their previous albums, ‘La Mia Terra’, Italian for “my land”, features songs in both English and Italian.

Opener ‘New Day’ stylistically reminded us of Alborosie’s work, but we found ourselves more drawn to Italian-language productions like title track ‘La Mia Terra’, an ode to Tuscany that sounds like it could easily climb the Italian charts. The song also features Tonino Carotone, a Spanish singer-songwriter who relocated to Italy and took his stage name as a tribute to his idol, Renato Carosone.

Another standout is the infectious, dancehall-infused ‘Mr. Propaganda’, once again in Italian, featuring the acoustic guitar of Italian guitar virtuoso Alessandro Finazzo aka Finaz.

On the other hand, the cumbia influences in ‘Cumbia Bam Bam’ felt overly commercial and, in our opinion, somewhat unnecessary.

Quartiere Coffee also collaborated with Wiss, the last remaining member of Israel Vibration, for the rootsy ‘Solomon Kingdom’. And in case you were wondering, yes, in the pop-leaning ‘Distante’, the band sampled Bob Marley’s iconic Tarzan yell from ‘Crazy Baldheads’.

Another collaboration comes in the form of ‘Black Eagle’, this time featuring Forelock. Meanwhile, ‘Vento D’Oriente’ leans toward a poppy, dancehall-light sound, and the album closes with ‘Oh Mama’, another pop-infused track that, much like their work on ‘Italian Reggae Familia’, incorporates influences from Italian bel canto.

While ‘La Mia Terra’ didn’t entirely win us over, longtime fans of Quartiere Coffee will undoubtedly enjoy every bit of it.