IL-LūDĕRE

"Il-ludere", the third album by Genoese band Il Tempio delle Clessidre, was released in 2017 on the independent label Black Widow Records with a renewed line up featuring Elisa Montaldo (keyboards, vocals), Fabio Gremo (bass, classical guitar, backing vocals), Giulio Canepa (electric and acoustic guitar, backing vocals), Mattias Olsson (drums, percussion, keyboards) and Francesco Ciapica (vocals). It confirms all the good qualities of the band's previous works delivering an excellent brew of vintage sounds, crisp melodies and freshness. The title is a kind of calambour, a pun mixing the words illusion and play that gives an idea of the musical content while the enigmatic art cover by Elisa Montaldo adds a touch of mystery and surprise...

The short opener "Le regole del gioco" (The rules of the game) sets the atmosphere by a sound of footsteps in the background, then you can hear a voice giving instructions in English to set up your stereo to get the maximum enjoyment from your listening experience... It leads to "La parola magica" (The magic word), a beautiful piece that evokes the memories of children fascinated with words in a time when "words were things of beauty, each like a magical powder or potion that could be combined with other words to create powerful spells, not frustrating, annoyingly elusive clusters of letters...". Well, this short quote from "Lightning", a novel by Dean Koontz, can give you an idea of the subject matter while the music and lyrics try to take you back in time, in a purer world where dreams can come true and you can believe in magic...

"Come nelle favole" (Like in the fairy tales) is another track full of positive energy that evokes the power of fantasy to overcome the frustrations of daily grind and find new harmony and new strength. Then it's the turn of the dreamy "Dentro la mia mente" (Inside my mind) that tells about words, lyrics and how the inspiration can come like a lightning out of the blue if you really look for it inside your mind...

"Spettro del palco" (Spectre of the stage) is darker and tells in a operatic, theatrical way a story of passion, jealousy, betrayal, murder and remorse. On a virtual stage inside his mind, the protagonist relives again and again the tragic moment when he stabbed to death his woman and failed to kill her lover... Then, the melancholic "Prospettive" (Perspectives) depicts in vivid colours a misty night spent walking under the city lights trying to escape from a raw, smothering reality.

The title of the following "Manitou" refers to the spiritual and fundamental life force in the Native American theology and here the music and lyrics evoke the breath of freedom, the call of the wind and a timeless quest for truth and astral balance... Next comes "Nuova alchimia" (New alchemy) that depicts apocalyptic sceneries and warns about the risks of a future where men feel like gods and are free to manipulate life. Here technology becomes a dangerous, transcendental art...

"La spirale del vento" (The spiral of the wind) starts by a dreamy piano solo pattern, then the music and lyrics unfold between illusion and reality alternating reflective passages and heavier sections, taking risky spiritual paths towards dark horizons... Then a bonus track closes the album. "Gnaffè" features the guest Andrea Montaldo on percussion and comes from the 2016 Colossus-Musea themed compilation album "Decameron - Ten Days In 100 Novellas (Part III)". It's a track with a very theatrical approach that tells in music words the story of a prank...

On the whole, an excellent album and a real must for every Italianprog lover.