APOTEOSI

APOTEOSI was one of the many Italian prog bands that emerged toward the tail end of the scene, managed to release a single album and then disbanded never to be heard from again. This band emerged from Palmi in the Calabria region of Southern Italy and was built around the nucleus of three siblings: Silvana, Massimo and Federico Idà. The band was notorious for being quite young as the majority were teens at the time, however they had all been playing together for quite some time before finally getting to this one and only eponymously titled album.

This project was a family affair in every way possible since the father Salvatore Idà even got in on the action and released the album on his Said Records, however release didn't translate into any fame or fortune due to horrible distribution and even less than adequate exposure through marketing. This was basically a homegrown affair that has remained so until modern day when interest in the album has picked up due to the popular interest that has developed in everything 70s prog.

APOTEOSI is an awkward sounding album that seems to meander unpredictably. The main sources of reference seem to belong to the greats of the Italian era such as PFM and Banco but missing are the outstanding full-band instrumental interplay, the sizzling poetic prose and interestingly arranged composiitons that offer a a ceaseless parade of good old fashioned Italian prog passion. In fact the album seems to rely on the atmospheric meanderings through different keyboard sections that allow the weak vocal style of Silvana to play peek-a-boo every once in a while without any satisfying resolve.

Perhaps the most satisfying aspects of APOTEOSI are the excellent bass, guitar and keyboard interaction that do indeed crank out some seriously technically infused chops but they seem to get lost when the atmospheric parts find Silvana delivering some of the weakest lyrical deliveries on any progressive Italian album i've ever encountered. So woefully weak are her parts that it pretty much derails any possibly enjoyment for this album as a listening experience for no matter how graceful are the transitions, no matter how flirtatious are the flutes or jarringly brilliant are the rest of the band's roles, this one key ingredient falls flat.

One could scour the 70s of hundreds of examples of Italian prog and only come away with the fact that there was a glut of extremely competent examples of progressive rock that mixed and melded with every other musical style under the sun with some of the greatest vocalists ever to have appeared on recordings to follow suit. It almost seems that it's literally impossible for an Italian band to crank out a substandard album but i've found that APOTEOSI managed to create a substandard flop that rubs me the wrong way in about every way possible.

Firstly the drum parts are obnoxiously loud and sound canned. The mix is painful and the musical flow seems rather haphazard with the ultimate weaknesses coming from both the female and male vocal performances. This would've been a much better album if it was completely instrumental but even the compositional prowess isn't up to snuff, made especially more irrelevant considering this was unleashed as late as 1975. Yeah, there are some brilliant instrumental workouts here and there but overall this is one of the most unsatisfying Italian prog albums i've ever heard and i've heard and awful lot. Back in the vaults with this one.