N.T. ATOMIC SYSTEM [AKA: UNA NOTTE SUL MONTE CALVO]

In the middle of the legal problems of The New Trolls, came albums from all sides, such "?", The Tritons and New Trolls Atomic System, before most of the members reconvened to reform TNT and record their second Concerto Grosso album. In the meantime, New Trolls Atomic System had put out two albums in 73 & 74, the first of which is eponymous, but has been reissued by Vinyl Magic under the name New Trolls and the album title as Atomic System. With only guitarist De Scalzi and ex-bassist (and then-actual TNT manager) Giorgio D'Adamo as TNT members, NTAS seemed to usurp the name a little, but musically speaking, they remained related to TNT, even if some elements were missing, notably the hard/heavy rock side.

With a "Krautrock-worthy" tasteless artwork, this album has a jazz-rock side to it, mixed with Emersonian organ playing, but the Zep influence (due to the other guitarist De Palo) is lost. The opening Father O'Brien's New Preaching is a fairly solid track, where Rosset's organ takes the highlight, eclipsing whatever other UK organist you might think of. Ho Visto Poi is another strong- starting track, and stands close to being one of the album's better track, if it wasn't for this awful (out tune/range) sax, certainly in the first part of the solo and ruining partly the fun. Tornare A Credere is unfortunately stuck in mediocre (all things relative, of course) pop music

The flipside starts on Hibernation, again a jazz-rock treatment of a pop song, with the added twist of a harpsichord, this track being the only one of the album getting a writing credit from the hired hands, and a good bass line coming towards the end of the track. When The Grass Dresses The Earth starts on a cheap synth, but De Scalzi's strong singing, underlined by a lovely flute, is soon making the song one of the album's highlights, with plenty of dramatics in terms of guitar, synth layers, great rhythm syncopations etc. Too bad the track ends badly with a small drum break, and the same unwise choice of sax as on the other side of the album. The closing Butterfly (the only English-sung track on the album) is probably the album's weaker moment, but still holds some very interesting interplay behind the popish vocals.

As a bonus track, is included one of the better Night On The Bald Mountain Sibellius reworks; I'm generally not a fan of these "things" but I must recognize that this one is fairly successful! The weird things is they chose to insert it between the two vinyl sides, but it dioes hinder the album's progress. One of the strange things is that there is a fair bit of time differences between the two sides of the vinyl and it was possible to switch track sequence to even it out! It's of course not easy to dismiss this album as a non-Trolls album, but the record, however different from full-fledged TNT albums is still a worthy one.

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