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Area - Crac ! CD (album) cover

CRAC !

Area

 

Rock Progressivo Italiano

4.24 | 418 ratings

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jamesbaldwin
Prog Reviewer
4 stars After the "Caution Radiation Area" experiment, Area change direction and produce a more accessible album, very rhythmic, full of prog music and free jazz.

"L'elefante Bianco (The White Elephant)". Hyperfast song with great virtuosic play of each instrument. Drums without brake, bass with high amplification very present, emphatic singing, electronic solos (Fariselli), very sustained rhythm with math-rock passages and typically prog rhythm changes. This is a great pop song that combines jazz-rock with prog of rare finesse and with a catchy production. Rating 8,5 / 9.

"La Mela di Odessa (The Apple of Odessa)". Another song very sustained but more jazzy, with the Tavolazzi double bass in the foreground while the solos alternate: synths, guitar, Stratos' voice used only to emit sounds. Halfway through the song, music stops, then starts again with Fariselli's synth, Tavolazzi's trombone and Stratos's spoken voice that tells a fairy tale. We are facing an almost Dadaist piece, with a pop format but with a sophisticated demented arrangement. If we exclude the recited voice, the rhythm and the baritone sound and the arrangement are similar to those that twenty years after having created "Morphine". The slow fading ending is a weak point of the piece. Rating 8+.

"Megalopoli" starts with industrial electronic sounds and onomatopoeic sounds made by Stratos' voice, which last for about a minute and a half, as if it were a cybernetic introduction, then starts true music, more electronic jazz, with Capiozzo stunts on the drums. Stratos continue to use his voice to articulate onomatopoeic sounds, without any meaning, until Tavolazzi's solo arrives on the double bass. Area after the first album, where the sound was only an amalgam of the whole group, they have already been transformed with "Caution" into a group that churns out solos of the various instruments, in a more prog style but also more cerebral and less visceral. This is my impression. Megalopoli is the most experimental song on this album, the one that comes closest to the songs of "Caution Radiation Area": it stands out above all for its always sustained rhythm. We hear three solos simultaneously: the drums of Capiozzo, the synth of Fariselli and the bass of Tavolazzi. At a certain point the song takes up the initial musical theme, almost as if it were a chorus, with the repetitions of Stratos 'vocalizations and then ends by fading again on Stratos' vocalizations. Rating 8.5.

End of an excellent A-side. Rating A-side: 8.5 / 9

"Nervi Scoperti (Uncovered Nerves)". A beautiful beginning with Tavolazzi which confirms himself to be a decisive element for the new sound of Area, much more than what was even the phenomenal Dijvas, who in Area's debut album followed his jazz-rock lines. Here Tavolazzi, as in many other passages of the album, he is left free to make remarkable virtuoso solos, accompanied first by the synth, then by the drums of Capiozzo and finally by the free- jazz liquid pianism of Fariselli that on the piano gives an unmistakable at this album. Before the end, Tofani's electric guitar arrive and Stratos' voice is used only to emit sounds. The song is very linear, remains on the same key, and it is based on the display of the solos of the instrumentalists. Very prog song, well done but without the creative genius in terms of composition. Excellent sudden ending. Rating 8.

"Gioia e Rivoluzione (Joy and Revolution)". In the beginning, it is a piano ballad with Stratos singing in the foreground. Rhythm guitar, catchy melody, it is almost a melodic pop song, one of the most accessible in the Area discography. Then comes an electric guitar solo, and we always hear a very solid bass. When it could become an excellent commercial single, instead of repeating verse and chorus, it ends up with a spree, with a long festive tail and cheeky choruses with lots of applause (clapping). Brilliant beginning and tacky ending. It will become a manifest song both for its catchiness and for the title. In fact it is one of the easiest songs to listen to in the whole production of Area and it is also one of the least elaborate, the simplest. Missed opportunity. Score 7.5.

"Implosion". Minimalist electronic beginning that could remember "Caution Radiation Area" then the usual Tavolazzi'bass marks the sound of the piece together with the synthesizers and the piano solos, and then the guitar solo. Again it is a rather linear instrumental song where the musicians enrich the music with their solos. The song does not seem to me to have a precise direction and risks being too formal, like an exercise in style. I don't see great spontaneity. The nuanced ending here is fine. Score 7,5 / 8.

"Area 5". Two-minute piece that ends a second interlocutory and almost all instrumental side. Instrumental song based on Capiozzo's tamburi, the bass played by Tavolazzi and onomatopoeic sounds made by Stratos' voice. Experimental piece but short and accessible. Rating 7.

End of a B-side much lower in terms of quality than the A-side: 7,5/8.

"Arbeit Macht Frei", written entirely by Fariselli, remains the most homogeneous album by Area in terms of music, structure, alternation of sung and instrumental songs, the most spontaneous and inspired, the most balanced, the one with a very clear personality. "Caution Radiation Area" is already not homogeneous, and much more experimental, decidedly difficult album. It almost completely renounces to the sung parts and is based on very different avant-garde compositions. "Crac" goes in the opposite direction of "Caution Radiation Area": the songs are much more linear and accessible but they are not homogeneus in terms of music and structure, even if they confirm the very high technical rate of the musicians. The music seems to me much more progressive, the three composers (Fariselli, Tavolazzi and Tofani) reserve parts for their solos, show off their virtuosity but the music of the second side does not seem very inspired and spontaneous to me (apart from Joy and Revolution, which however is not well developed) and flaw in calligraphy, formalism prog. We are clearly talking about a group, Area, which also in this case reaches the heights of creativity and courage and sophistication that the vast majority of prog groups could only dream...

but this time I am forced to rate 8.5 / 9, that is, four and a half stars to an Area's album. Yes, in my opinion, Crac is of slightly lower quality than Caution Radiation Area.

jamesbaldwin | 4/5 |

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