ALTARE THOTEMICO

A good return to the beat music that preceeded RPI, this album.

Altare Thotemico is an interesting new band and this is their only album so far. Let's hope there will be a follow up pretty soon.

Where most new RPI bands tends to go back to the early to mid 1970s scene, Altare Thotemico has gone a bit further back in time. Their sound is very contemporary though and that makes this album very much a contemporary album. Their sound also has a lot of jazz influences in it and that explains their claim to be Area inspired. Maybe they are, but they most of all sounds like one of those beat bands who borrowed a lot from the jazz scene.

Gianni Venturi's vocals is an acquired taste though and it is gives this album a lot of it's identity. His vocals is pretty aggressive and a bit shouting as in punk vocals. A classic vocalist, he is not. The rest of the band is very tight. In particular the bass and the drums which takes no prisoners.

The music is good throughout. There is no great songs here, but still enough goody things to make this an interesting album. I have to admit the vocals is a bit hard to handle though. But the jazz and beat melodies more than compensate for this discomfort. This album is one of the oddity albums in the RPI scene and worth checking out.

3 stars