IL PESCE ROSSO...

A long pause followed the stellar debut album of the Montefeltro because of Attilio Virgilio's life changes and job commitments.And when he finally decided to record a follow-up work to ''Il tempo di far la fantasia'', Piergiorgio Ambrossi was not next to him anymore.Instead he gathered a number of guest musicians to help him mainly on the drum and bass sessions and thus ''Il pesce rosso, vestito alla Werther, mangiò l'uva il 1° dell'anno'' was born and eventually released on Mellow Records in 2001.

The tracks are long, the atmosphere romantic but this is actually a very different album compared to ''Il tempo di far la fantasia''.What went wrong?Was it maybe Ambrossi's absence?Possibly not, as Virgilio was also the main composer of the band's fantastic debut.It seems this time the Italian multi-instrumentalist decided to go for a much smoother, more accesible and easy-going style, bringing to mind the most accesible moments of ATON'S and 90's era MARILLION.Add to this style some touches from other music genres such as World Music, Lounge Jazz, Folk and Ambient Music and the puzzle is complete, though it does not seem that the pieces are in the right order.The whole atmosphere is too mellow, the musicianship tends to be hypnotic at moments and the great inspiration of the debut is long gone.Compositionally it is not a bad work, the different ideas and genres are tightly connected, but the music never takes off and it seems not to have a specific orientation.A couple of tracks even contain shadows of the band's debut like ''Omait '' or ''Racconto di maggio, Dell's umano sognare''.But the unrelated themes confuse the listener, while the very soft arrangements make this one far from memorable.

It seems that Virgilio put the project on ice after this effort and I would definitely recommend the listener to stick with the first album of the band.The second release is a peaceful work of vocal Art Rock with decent arrangements but rather forgettable material as a whole...2.5 stars.