IN THE BEGINNING

After discovering Nuova Idea´s last album, Clown, I dediced that I should look for their previous works to have a bigger picture of their career and sound. Although the title is in english (as are all of the group´s three LPs) it is all sung in italian, always a plus in everything concerning italian prog. But upon listening carefully to it, it is clear that the group wasn´t exactly at their prime by the time they recorded their debut. The side long track Come, Come, Come... has a lot of early Deep Purple influences on it (you know that mix of 60´s psychedelic and 70´s heavy rock) and showed they tried to bite more than they could chew: few nice parts interspected with other not so nice, a lack of cohesion and that dreadful drum solo by the end of the song (that must have been fashionable at the time, but terribly dated and pointless soon after).

Side two on the other side showed some better short stuff: Realtà is a fine pop/prog song with some very nice vocal arrangements and a folky feel at the beginming before jumping into a hard rock in the middle, then it repeats the whole plot again. I guess it cold have been better if they had cooked it a little longer. La Mia Scelta is another typícal early DP hard rock tune: good, but nothing special. Non Dire Niente is an excellent prog folk tune that only the italians knew how to do, probably the album´s best song, much in the vein of PFM. Dolce Amore closes the album with a few experimental touches at the arrangements and a typical italian song structure of the time. Not exactly progressive, but very good anyway.

In the end I found this band still struggling to find their voice. They certainly had the chops and the songwriting hability to deliver some fine tunes. If only they had not tried to do a 20 minute suite so soon, I´m sure they´d have come up with something more substancial and convincing. Still, not bad. If you like the aforementined styles you should check this out.

Final rating: 2,5 stars.