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Ego - Evoluzione Delle Forme CD (album) cover

EVOLUZIONE DELLE FORME

Ego

 

Rock Progressivo Italiano

4.00 | 22 ratings

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seventhsojourn
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator
5 stars The continued stream of exciting new arrivals on the ProgArchives database is like the limitless blanket of stars in the night sky, and from the wellspring of Italian progressive music comes the keyboards, bass and drums trio of Ego. This band is long overdue on PA largely as a result of being one of the trickier RPI evaluations.

They arrived at the villa with a high recommendation based on their previous release 'MCM Egofuturismo', although in all honesty when I heard that album I thought the recommendation must have come from a deaf camel. 'MCM Egofuturismo' is a bit of a strange flavoured Italian sausage, being a rather half-hearted attempt at blending traces of jazz and ELP with 1980s synthesizers and electronics. There's even a drum machine on the album.

However, 'Evoluzione Delle Forme' is a much more homogenous work that differs essentially from its predecessor in being a full-blown Italian Symphonic Prog album. The band cites Le Orme and Goblin as influences, but I can also hear some New Trolls Atomic System. Like a snake that sheds its old skin the music transmits a strong feeling of liberation and I think this is central to the album; as keyboardist Pier Caramel states in an interview here on PA, the band have a 'shared will to tear down certain musical schemes.' Okay, so the ELP influence remains and that's hardly a novelty. And Ego recognise their limitations as musicians - they're dedicated pros rather than technical wizards - but what is important is that they know melody like the Tetley folk know tea.

The album is very loosely themed around the band's own musical growth and it gradually evolves like an unfolding dream. The music is entirely instrumental save for some wordless vocals on one track - think of Focus - and is constructed around fluvial keyboards, mainly organ treated with Leslie effect, and the unwavering solidity of the rhythm section. The one minor quibble I have is the occasional use of keys that are obviously digital but the auxiliary flute, trombone and violin more than adequately compensate for this. It's probably worth mentioning that the music fills just over 40 minutes and therefore contains no filler.

'Evoluzione Delle Forme' will I hope establish Ego as one of the major RPI bands of the modern age and in my opinion it leaves other contenders for album of the year trailing in its wake. Yes, I think it's that good and I don't see it being paralleled in the next two months. Time alone will tell how I feel about it in ten years time but for now it's an instant RPI classic.

seventhsojourn | 5/5 |

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