ESSERE O NON ESSERE ?

Il Volo's second album "Essere o Non Essere" is not really typical of other albums in the Italian section of this site. While I love the Italian symph genre I know that some of you bristle at the vocals and occasionally dated sounds.

Essere is not like that at all. This is a mostly instrumental album first of all, a bit jazzy and plenty rocking. The sound is great on the Japanese CD and the production quite good too. The music should appeal very much to fans of good rock music with lots of lush instrumentation, bright guitars, full bass, and very expressive drumming. While the playing is indeed top notch the band presents a very unified sound and avoid simply trading long-winded solos.

The album reminds me a little of PFM's "Stati" release in that you have gorgeous yet powerful instrumental music that would work perfectly as a soundtrack to the kind of video PFM used. For some reason "Essere" constantly puts images of flight in my mind.

I read that this album sold poorly back in the day and the band split. That's a shame because it would have been fascinating to hear what direction they took after this one. And it proves again that sales and quality music often have very little to do with each other. So always hunt for these little gems regardless of what the hot sellers are.

Both Volo albums are easy to enjoy and I would recommend anyone check them out, fan of Italian prog or not. There is a stream from this album on this great site so you can sample it for free. If you like it try and hunt down the Japanese mini-lp sleeve while you can.

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