ORLANDO: LE FORME DELL'AMORE

Banco del Mutuo Soccorso are a legend in the Italian progressive rock scene. Founded in 1970 by brothers Gianni and Vittorio Nocenzi, the band quickly gained popularity at home as well as internationally, thanks to their original take on progressive rock, mixing the influences of British bands like ELP and Gentle Giant with distinctively Mediterranean sensibilities harking back to the Italian "bel canto" tradition in opera. Iconic albums like Darwin! (1972) and Io Sono Nato Libero (1973) earned Banco a place among the "big three" of the Italian prog rock scene, together with Le Orme and PFM. Throughout the years, the band continued to release a steady stream of albums, but their career risked coming to an end after the tragic and untimely death in 2014 of their iconic lead singer, Francesco Di Giacomo. However, Vittorio Nocenzi found the strength to continue and recruited a new bunch of exceptional talents for his band (singer Tony D'Alessio behind the mic, Nicola Di Già on guitar, Marco Capozi on bass and Fabio Moresco on drums). After releasing their come-back record Transiberiana in 2019, Banco return this September with their 18th LP to date, Orlando: Le Forme dell'Amore (Orlando: The Shapes of Love), an ambitious concept album centered around Ludovico Ariosto's XVI century epic poem Orlando Furioso (Raging Roland).

The album had a long gestation period, and some of the songs go even back to the years before Di Giacomo's death and have been reworked extensively since then. The time and effort Nocenzi and his bandmates put into the project definitely pays off, though. Orlando is probably one of the best progressive rock albums I had the pleasure to listen to in recent years. It combines the textural and compositional depth of classic prog rock with an incredible sense of melody, striking a remarkable balance between complexity and accessibility. It is no mean feat. The history of prog rock and metal is rife with albums that seem written exclusively for the pleasure of those playing them, where displays of technical prowess and compositional complexity come across as sterile means without an end. With Orlando, Banco show that virtuoso playing and intricate, multi-part arrangements can also be used to convey emotions and to tell engaging and relatable stories.

The way the album is arranged oozes class and sophistication. Each instrument is a voice in a colourful and ever-changing orchestra. Melodic lines get swapped between Nocenzi's keyboards and the guitars played by Di Già and Filippo Marchegianni. Capozi's bass is used both as a melodic and rhythmic instrument, depending on the needs of each song, while drummer Fabio Moresco is equally apt to switch from track to track between steady rock-tempo keeping and nimble playing. A vast array of compositional techniques is used, in a way that is always functional to the album's narrative. In "Non Serve Tremare", Angelica - one of the protagonists in Ariosto's poem ? runs away from the violence of war. The alternation between 3/4 and 7/8 and minor / major scales is a great expedient to create tension and release, capturing Angelica's ambivalent feelings of fear and hope. The use of chromatic elements in "La Maldicenza" perfectly convey the perversion of gossip and slander. Elsewhere, delicate acoustic arrangements allow the band to express the more romantic aspects of Ariosto's poem, whose themes of love and yearning are as important as the tales of heroism and war ("Serve Orlando Adesso", "L'Amore Accade"). But the beating heart of this album are the fantastic melodies that run through its 15 songs, making them so memorable and unique. There is something about the way the melodic lines are constructed that I find absolutely mesmerizing. It is not just that they are catchy and instantly accessible. They are also dramatic, interesting, and extremely rich in the spectrum of emotions and mindspaces they explore ? from melancholy, to epicness, to raging fury. A former Italian X-Factor contestant, Tony D'Alessio is an incredible talent, and his full, expressive voice is the ideal conduit for the album's melodic ideas. His heavy metal heritage (he played in a handful of minor Italian prog metal acts in the 1990s) allows him to be very convincing in chanting the rages of war ("La Pianura Rossa"), but his voice can also caress the ear in the mellowest passages. The singer's histrionic performance is certainly one of the highlights of the record.

Another thing that stood out for me is how current and relevant Banco's music sounds still today. It's fair to say that many classic prog rock bands that are still releasing albums today, have not aged terribly well (Yes, for instance). These bands' sound is firmly rooted in the 1970s and it's difficult to shake off the impression that the same musical ideas are being recycled over and over again. Banco do not allow their music to be fossilized in the 1970s, but experiment with new sounds and techniques, from the user of vocoder to samples and loops. As a result, Orlando sounds fresh and contemporary. The unnerving opening bars of "Non Serve Tremare" nearly catapult me into a Radiohead's album, while elsewhere the music incorporates the influence of contemporary Italian "musica leggera" (singer-songwriter / pop music) in its most sophisticated forms (Franco Battiato). Meanwhile, songs like "Serve Orlando Adesso" and "Non Mi Spaventa Piu' l'Amore" look beyond European musical traditions and are built around a milonga rhythm.

The music is brilliant, but I must say it's not fully supported by the sound production, which is a tad too light and weightless for my taste. The instrument separation is fairly extreme. While this helps in picking up the melodic and rhythmical figures played by each musician, it reduces somewhat the overall impact of the music. Moreover, the drum sound is pretty thin, which is a problem in the record's heaviest passages ("La Pianura Rossa"). I wish the production could have been fuller and "meatier" to give the album the bigger and deeper sound it needs. I also felt the LP is perhaps a bit too long for its own good (just over 76 minutes). It's actually not length per se that is the problem, but the way that the album's narrative seems to get a bit garbled towards the end. The record achieves its emotional peak with the beautiful ballad "L'Amore Accade" (sung by guest vocalist Viola Nocenzi, Vittorio's daughter) and one would expect things to wind down and conclude shortly afterwards. In fact, the song is followed by the quiet and meditative "Non Credere Alla Luna", whose cathartic bluesy coda feels just like the perfect place to end the record. Yet there are three more tracks and over 20 minutes of music left, including the mini-epic "Moon Suite" which alone lasts 11 minutes. While each of these songs is quite beautiful per se, they feel unnecessary in the context of the album, spoiling somewhat the emotional arc that the album's narrative had traced up to this point.

Orlando is nevertheless a stunning return for Banco del Mutuo Soccorso. The album possesses the timeless elegance and beauty of the best rock operas out there, masterfully combining melodic accessibility with the virtuoso playing and complex arrangements of prog. It is epic and romantic and it feels modern and relevant. As such, it can appeal to a host of different fans, from 1970s prog rock aficionados to younger metalheads who may have a soft spot for musicals and theatrical repertoires and artists (Trans-Siberian Orchestra; Arjen Anthony Lucassen ? especially his latest Ayreon's album Transitus). Highly recommended!

[Originally written for The Metal Observer]

Over the past year I have really delved deep into Italian prog, something which had previously been a big blind spot for me. Very quickly Banco rose to the top and have cemented themselves as a top five 70s prog band for me. 'Orlando: Le Forme dell'Amore' is the latest album from the current incarnation of the band. The prior album 'Transiberiana' from 2019 I thought was solid but nothing something that left much of a mark on me. So going in Orlando I was not expecting much and when I also saw it had a length of nearly 80 minutes, my hopes for the album dropped drastically.

But to my surprise Orlando is a big step up from its predecessor. This album is actually really good. I do think it is too long and could have done with some editing down. But having said that I do enjoy every song, so what I would actually cut out I am not entirely sure. The album has great instrumentation, with clear nods to their past but still firmly modern sounding. This is certainly no retro album. What grabbed me the most however is how catchy the album is, there are so many great melodies throughout. This element is a particular improvement over Transiberiana.

A big shout out needs to go to vocalist Tony D'Alessio who has one of the toughest tasks in prog, having to fill the massive shoes left by the late Francesco Di Giancomo who was one of the great prog vocalists. D'Alessio thankfully does not try to imitate the unique Di Giancomo (an impossible task), but he does deliver a great performance in his own right. He sings with great emotion that is worthy of Di Giancomo. Overall, this album has been a pleasant surprise. It is rare for veteran bands to deliver an album this good so late into their career.

While indisputably one of the prog scene's greatest bands ever to emerge from 1970s Italy, BANCO DEL MUTUO SOCCORSO better known as BANCO dominated the world of symphonic prog but like most proggers of the day totally derailed once musical tastes shifted and left the band struggling to adapt to the new world of punk, heavy metal and new wave. BANCO was not very good at watering its classic sophisti-prog down into the sugary realms of pop music and despite crafting some of the all time classics with albums like "Darwin," equally churned out some of the most nauseating attempts of a band of such caliber trying to fit in with the newer contemporary sounds. The 80s was not kind. After a final attempt to gain some momentum in the alternative 90s and even an ill-fated attempt to re-record "Darwin," BANCO fell silent presumably never to be heard from again.

This was made all the more so when legendary lead singer Francesco Di Giacomo perished in a car accident in 2014. Who in the world would have thought that this legendary band had any second life in them? BANCO shocked the prog world it was reformed by the only original member still standing, pianist and keyboardist Vittorio Nocenzi with a new cast of characters and released "Transiberiana" in 2019. The track record of forty year old prog bands reforming and recapturing the spirit of their original run isn't very good and although nobody initially thought anything of this comeback, BANCO exceeded expectations with a brilliant album that melded the soulful performances of decades ago with a new modern sheen that incorporated all the newer production techniques to the mix. I was pleasantly surprised for sure and now it's officially no one off fluke. BANCO are back with ORLANDO: LE FORME DELL'AMORE (The Shapes of Love), officially the band's 18th studio album.

Hard to believe that ORLANDO: LE FORME DELL'AMORE has arrived just in time for the band's 50th anniversary of the self-titled masterpiece and "Darwin" but a half of a century has elapsed making it so. Unbelievably BANCO sounds amazingly reinvigorated with the same music mojo that brought them to the world's stage so many decades ago. This is a concept album not based on the famous city in Florida but rather the 16th century poem "Orlando Furioso" written by Ludovico Ariosto which first appeared in 1516. ORLANDO was a Christian knight who fought in the war between the Charlemagne Christian paladins and the Saracen army that invaded Europe for the sake of overthrowing the Christian empire. The poem itself was divided into 46 cantos. The concept and complex nature of the poem lends to an amazing display of musical antics that accompany these themes.

ORLANDO, the album is like a double album from the classic prog era with 15 tracks and a running time of a whopping 79 minutes, quite a risky endeavor for a band some 50 years in existence but let's face it: this is BANCO in name only with only one original member. Despite the fact that Vittorio Nocenzi is the only original knight in this musical escapade though doesn't mean that this lineup of six hasn't successfully captured the essence of BANCO's classic sound. In fact ORLANDO is an even better album than "Transiberiana" which i rather liked quite a bit. Like any great Italian prog album, lyrics are exclusively in the Italian language and the diversity of sounds matches anything from the golden years. The new vocalist Tony D'Alessio performs the unthinkable task of replacing the late great Franceso Di Giacomo and while this may prove to be an insurmountable task, D'Alessio delivers stellar performances despite not being a young whippersnapper himself.

Paced like a traditional concept album from the classic prog years, ORLANDO opens with poetic prose and then breaks into a never ending series of melodic developments, strong composiitons and of course excellent musical deliveries. Although not original members, the five musicians sound like seasoned veterans in the prog field with the ability to craft pastoral intricate melodies or bombastic outbursts of prog excesses often within the same track. The track "Il Palidino" showcases some of the knottiest hefty workouts on the entire album. Lush ballads and adrenaline fueled heaviness more or less perfectly narrate the concept without the listener having any idea what the Italian lyrics are referencing. Most of all much effort was obviously put into the album's diversity of individual tracks which makes ORLANDO a most surprising comeback indeed.

Perhaps the biggest downfall of ORLANDO: LE FORME DELL'AMORE is its excessive playing time. I mean 79 minutes is a lot to ask for in our contemporary short attention span era. There's no way i would've even considered listening to this album if not for the fact it was BANCO! While BANCO's classic albums are in no danger of being outdone, this one is so much better than i could've possibly hoped for. The album basically builds on what what was presented on "Transiberiana" as the new BANCO and carried out to classic BANCO progginess. None of the guys in this lineup are youthful so don't expect any virtuosic performances on par with past glories but for a band of aging prog rockers you really couldn't expect anything better than what is presented on ORLANDO. The album could be shorter but even so there are really no substandard tracks, just too many of them! An excellent comeback for BANCO who appears to be on a roll with its second coming. Bravissimo!