THE NEW PROGMANTICS

Sarastro Blake is the new band of italian musician Paolo Pigni who formed this band in 2011. Paolo Pigni was already involved in another prog band from Italy named Mogador and already had an album under his name. The new progmatics released in 2013 is a quite great first offer, with lush orchestrations, folk passages and quite intresting lyrics. As the title suggesting, the album is a combination of romantic typical italian flavour music all under prog atmosphere. There are some invited guests well known in prog circles like Nick Magnus on keyboards from Steve Hacket fame, the unmatch Rick Wakeman, Richard Sinclair from Caravan or Camel fame and among others Billy Sherwood , all done afantastic job. The music flows very nice from more uptempo parts to folky landscapes, really expressive keyboards passages, nice guitars and pleasent vocal arrangements. The opening The Lady of Shalott is absolutely kick ass tune, very nice, crescendo type of piece who gives instantly a 70's aura to the music, very nice. Some baroque moments are also present on Sonnet 116. All pieces stands as great, no weak moment here. One of the pleasent and rewarding albums of 2013 for sure. Very nice just in mood with the music is the art work, very nice. All in all this band needs a far more exposure, The new progmatics is filled with quality music that any prog fan can enjoy. For me 4 stars easy.