There is something immediately fitting about an album called Entroterra coming from an artist born in Calabria but now living in Milan. The word itself points inland, away from the obvious coastline, towards the places that aren’t necessarily on the postcard. Iberico approaches songwriting in much the same way. His second album isn’t particularly interested in showing off, it goes looking through old rooms, half-remembered conversations, departures, relationships and the uncomfortable bits of ourselves that have a habit of following us wherever we move. But please note we are an English magazine and don’t speak Italian so please take that into account in our review.
Released on 17 September 2026, Entroterra follows Non fare rumore with twelve songs that sit somewhere between contemporary Italian cantautorato and indie-pop. It’s a record built around storytelling rather than sonic fireworks, and that’s simultaneously its greatest strength and the area where Iberico could afford to take a few more risks.
Scala di cuori makes a strong opening argument for the album. There’s an intimacy to it that immediately establishes what Iberico is trying to do: bring the listener close rather than kick the door down. It has the feel of somebody taking an old photograph from a drawer and discovering that the memory attached to it has changed with age. It’s understated, but deliberately so.
Dovrei essere. Iberico is convincing when he’s dealing with the distance between who somebody is and who they’re supposedly meant to be. There’s a vulnerability without the song begging for sympathy, which is important. The arrangement could perhaps push harder against the vocal rather than always accommodating it, but the writing carries it.
Then comes Effetto Morgana, one of those moments where the album’s themes of memory and perception begin bleeding into one another. There’s something appropriate about the idea of a mirage appearing on a record so concerned with what remains and what disappears. Musically, it’s polished without becoming sterile, although a little more abrasion would give the song additional teeth.
Stare a Milano inevitably carries extra weight considering Iberico’s own move from Catanzaro to Milan. Rather than turning the city into a glamorous backdrop, the song feels more interested in what it means to exist somewhere that isn’t where you started. That’s far more compelling. Anyone who has moved away from home will recognise the strange business of gradually belonging to two places and, occasionally, feeling completely at home in neither.
That idea expands with Il canto dell’emigrato. Iberico is at his best when a personal starting point becomes something larger than autobiography. Migration, separation and the pull of home are subjects capable of becoming painfully sentimental, but the song largely avoids that trap. Its restraint makes the emotion more believable.
Crescere turns towards the unavoidable mess of growing older. There’s no grand revelation here, and that’s actually the point. Growing up rarely arrives as some cinematic moment of clarity; mostly you realise it happened while you were busy doing something else. Iberico captures that feeling well. By this stage, however, the album’s consistently controlled approach begins to expose one weakness: a couple of sharper changes in pace, instrumentation or production would prevent the middle section from becoming too comfortable.
Non ci sei più. It’s one of the record’s more emotionally direct moments, but Iberico doesn’t overplay it. The temptation with material like this is to throw everything at the chorus and tell the listener exactly how devastated they should feel. He trusts the story instead, and the song is stronger for it.
Occhi da indiano moves the record back towards character-driven writing. It demonstrates why Iberico’s approach works when he’s observing other people rather than simply documenting himself. Small human details give his songs their personality. It feels lived-in rather than manufactured, although once again you occasionally wish the production would get dirt under its fingernails to match the humanity of the writing.
Non tornerà understands the finality contained in its title. There is a difference between missing something and finally accepting that it isn’t coming back, and Iberico finds that distinction. It’s melancholic without becoming melodramatic, which is a difficult balance across an album already carrying this much emotional weight.
Then Mi manchi da impazzire makes that restraint harder to maintain. Even the title is more exposed: missing somebody like crazy isn’t subtle. Iberico allows himself to lean into that feeling, and the change is welcome. After so much careful reflection, hearing the emotional temperature rise gives the latter part of Entroterra renewed momentum.
Il corso del sole feels like the record beginning to look outward again. There is a sense of movement here, of time continuing regardless of whether the people inside these stories are ready for it. That wider perspective suits Iberico and provides some necessary breathing room before the final track.
And La radice del male is an intriguing way to close. Rather than supplying a neat resolution, the title alone suggests digging underneath everything that came before it. Roots can anchor you, but roots can also hold things beneath the surface. On an album obsessed with origins, memory and what people carry with them, ending at “the root of evil” gives Entroterra a darker aftertaste than a comforting finale would have done.
We are sorry if any of our words are lost in translations here, we have gone with the feeling of the songs and our interpretation of what Italian we understand here, so lets close. The impressive thing about Iberico is that he clearly knows what kind of songwriter he wants to be. These aren’t tracks assembled around whatever indie-pop production trick happens to be fashionable this month. There is an identity running through them, tied to Italian songwriting tradition but not imprisoned by it. His move between Calabria and Milan gives the album an especially convincing geographical backbone: Entroterra understands that home isn’t merely a location but a collection of people, habits, regrets and memories.
Where the record could improve is in matching the adventurousness of its stories with greater musical contrast. Twelve tracks built around reflective storytelling can become too sonically polite if every arrangement gives the vocal the same amount of space. A few uglier sounds, unexpected rhythmic shifts or moments where the instrumentation genuinely interrupts Iberico rather than supporting him could make the emotional peaks hit considerably harder. That’s not an argument for burying these songs beneath production. Quite the opposite. If the stories are strong enough to survive that tension — and many of them are — they deserve to be challenged by the music around them.
Still, Entroterra succeeds because it feels like somebody actually needed to write it. He’s interested in the marks left by specific people and specific places, and in how those marks change as we get older and further away from them.
The album occasionally plays things safer than its subject matter warrants, but beneath that restraint is a songwriter with something recognisably his own. Entroterra doesn’t shout for attention. It sits beside you, starts telling stories and gradually makes you realise you’ve been listening to your own memories as well.
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