A SEVEN DAYS LONG WAIT

The sound on this record is best described as heavy progressive rock with cues and influences from 70's Italian prog and 60's psychedelic. The vocal performance is akin to a goofy Jim Morrison which, in and of itself, wouldn't be that bad if the songs were interesting. But they're not. Most of them are overly long explorations of a simple chord progression that has about as much intrigue as a guitar song book for kids. And even that still would have put this record at 2-stars were not it not for the "jamming" that goes on and on almost every track.

I know these guys are young and they're clearly skilled musicians. Hell, if you have a gig in Rome and need to hire a backing band, I'm sure these guys would do one hell of a job. But prog rock composers these dudes ain't. Better luck next time.

A group from Rome with a Ray Bradbury-inspired band name. According to the band this concept album recounts "a journey of purification necessary to be reborn to new life." It starts out sounding like neo-prog, but as it goes on, it settles into a stretch of heavy prog with memorable, dark riffs, lots of organ and impassioned Italian-accent vocals in English. Best songs are the title track, which develops from smoldering to intensity, and "Tears," which uses the "Black Sabbath" tritone riff. Effective if derivative and there's great personality to the keyboard sounds. Also noteworthy is "A Narrow Passage," a triple-time pile-driver of a song.