GERMINALE

This is in fact a very strong debut album by this 90's Italian symphonic prog band. It's much in the spirit of the 70's masters, but they are presenting here really their very own style. Musicianship is excellent and there is a broad spectrum of instruments used, like acoustic and electric guitars, flute, sax, piano and different keyboard sounds. The songs are sometimes rather lengthy featuring multiple parts which are often very much different from each other.

As an example Soffi Sonori is starting very quiet with soft piano, shifting to organ sound and uplifting tempo when the vocals come in. After another short quiet silent part with tender acoustic guitar there is an extreme shift to a quite cacophonic section with a free-jazz sax solo. After this short heavy breakout the song returns to its mellow melodic mood from the beginning with flute and piano followed by another quite sudden shift to vocals accompanied by acoustic guitar and some piano tunes and a final flute/organ part. Really an amazing track and excellent for a debut. This one is a highlight of the album, but all the other songs are very good as well. Other highlights are La Strega , featuring a nice flute solo, Lo Sguardo Nello Specchio, containing more rocking elements and Il Mago, which has a slightly jazzy section in the beginning with nice sax playing.

This is the only album I listened from them so far, but I'll try to get their second, which must be a masterpiece obviously. But their first one was already very good and IMHO HIGHLY RECOMMENDED to all lovers of Italian symphonic Prog. Although it might be considered a non essential one in general I can't give less than 4 stars for this one!!