L'APPRENDISTA

This is the transitional album from a polit-folk group into a RIO group. With L'Apprendista (the apprentice), you can still hear the Biglietto Del Tram's very talkative folk (the opening Buon Lavoro) and you're already into a solid form of RIO with its free-form improvs and some chamber rock not far from what Univers Zero did, while still having some accessible, if slightly weird, tunes ala Gentle Giant (the closing Orchestra Dei Fischietti).

As much as this album is usually seen as their best (I agree under certain conditions), I can always feel their influences plastered a little too thickly. They admit themselves to listening to a Giant Crimson Cow at the time,, and it sure sounds like it. Might I suggest that they hadn't taken enough time to digest these influences and they're all too obvious. Their following MM album will be a much more personal affair, although I wouldn't call it their best work either. Another example of this album's multiple borrowings, is the use of the bassoon, already heard in Gryphon, Cow's Lindsey Cooper and Univers Zero (even though their first album would see the light of day after this one), is all too indicative of what they heard, not what they are.

L'Apprendista IS a good album, it might even deserve itsessential 4 star status, but I find that its influences are way too apparent to diSrve it so. In either case, Apprendista is with MM, SS's better album and certainly the reason why SS was a founding member of the RIO movement, even though Area could've filled that slot as well;

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