THE TRIP

Well honestly I don't like this stuff very much, except on a few breaks through in the vein of bands such as ELP and Le ORME. However they will do a bit better in the future, thanks to the following 2nd issue "Caronte", a concept album. Not essential!

The first work released in 1970 "The Trip". Organ rock with psychedelic sound of chorus and guitar. The group that made an original album several years later release a psychedelic work in around 1970,was so many. This group is also so. It is a collage album that composes again by daring to divide the performance into the fragment. It is rock light when listening only to the motif. The rhythm, the melody, and musical instruments are frequently changed and the unpleasantness raises it gradually. The attempt is interesting as the idea. It is correct and progressive though gets irritated. Joe Vescovi of the keyboard who is those who compose is a person who receives the education of the contemporary music. I recommends this to die hard Italian rock fan.

With such a name and such a title, you can easily imagine which type of music this Italian band is playing. Pure psychedelic glory of course!

And I have to say that it is quite enjoyable to the ears of yours faithfully. Totally early Floyd oriented, this album is sung in English (when vocals apply) and can't be really be considered to belong to the Italian genre IMHHO.

The opening number, which is an instrumental, is a highlight of this album. More ASOS oriented I would say: it is demoniac psychedelia from the good old days. With "Incubi", the band gets back a bit more in time, and the sound is more "Piper" oriented. Instrumental passages are quite well performed but the vocal parts are not that great (but this is general remark as far as I'm concerned).

"Visioni dell'Aldilà" is a weird track in its early stages (but Roger said about ASOS that it couldn't be called a "song"; so?). Vocals are better than usual; but there is no structure in this song. Themes are changing all the time: so be prepared for quite an experience! What a ride!

At a certain moment ("Rifflessioni"), the band doesn't seem to know in which direction they want to go. This song is a pitiful melting pot of several influences (mainly pop, boogie, AND decadent music).

The closing number is a childish pop/psyche song which sounds quite outdated (but hey! This was released in 70). All in all, I quite like this album. Three stars is accurate for this work.

I am looking forward to discover more from this band.

THE TRIP (1970) is a Progressive album that crosses in the acid psychedelic rock or an album of psychedelic acid band that travels in the progressive rock.

I believe that the truth lies somewhere in between.

Definitely is a very original album and full of stylistic surprises.

Also the Italian music critics of those years defined this album as ''impressionistic music'' (Musica Impressionistica) printed on the back cover of the album.

It means the music based on impressions and the feeling that your mind will give you, it will suggest in listening to the album, it means, the trip.

This definition of (Musica Impressionistica) is very interesting and this is a great and proper credit for the band (The Trip) because in those years the Italian musical critics used the definition '' BEAT or POP '' to label all sorts of new rock music.

THE TRIP (1970) definitely is a Progressive rock album even if the band remains influenced by acid Psychedelic of the late sixties like also many British bands like for example '' Pink Floyd '' King Crimson '' YES, and many other bands that they released an album in 1970 following this style of music and switching between the sixties to the early seventies.

The album ranges with hypnotic introductions created by Leslie organ and lysergic moments, classical pieces and baroquisms with Progressive sound by acid vibe in the groove with some moments mixed in the rock blues and the gospel with use of choral and falsetto voices.

This is heard in songs like Prologo, Incubi, Visioni del'aldila, Riflessioni and ''Una Pietra Colorata'' which is a short Psychedelic track that closes the album which initially the song was not part of the album and also which it was originally in English previously entitled "Take Me" and transformed with Italian lyric penned by the drummer 'Pino Sinnone' and add to the album for contractual reasons of the RCA records because being an album released in Italy and there had to be at least one song in Italian and short song for single promotional of the album and radio.

The album The Trip (1970) is like a visionary journey of a impressionistic collage of musical styles in key Progressive rock of the early seventies led by the organist ''Joe Vescovi'' inspired by the paintings of ''Hieronymus Bosch'' saying in an interview.

The Trip is an important band and album how important are their albums that predecessor their debut like , Caronte (1971), Atlantide (1972), Time Of Change (1973 ) albums that are always in a stylistic evolution.

The Trip was initially one of many English bands coming to Italy in search of success during the beat-era and psychedelic movement in the mid-sixties with Ritchie Blackmore in the line up before forming the Deep Purple in 1968.

line-up, along with founder members ''Arvid 'Wegg' Andersen'' Bass, vocals, ''Ritchie Blackmore'' lead guitar ''Billy Gray'' Guitar, vocals and drummer ''Ian Broad'', a line-up change in 1969 brought two Italians in, first the keyboard player ''Joe Vescovi'' (later the leading figure in the band) and after the drummer ''Pino Sinnone''.

The Trip they were present at several Italian major rock festivals new trends as for example the historical festival of Caracalla 1970 (dubbed the Woodstock of Italy) and peak band at the historic Piper Club of Rome undisputed temple of many Italian and abroad psychedelic and progressive bands of the sixties and seventies.

The trip, also were protagonists of a Psychedelic rock film "TERZO CANALE, avventura a Montecarlo" was released in theaters in 1970 and the final scenes of the film were filmed during the ''1st Caracalla Pop Festival'' which took place in the ''Terme di Caracalla'' (Baths of Caracalla) in Rome from 10 to 11 October 1970.

The Trip 1970 It was undoubtedly the first Progressive rock album that comes out in Italy and the band that active all roads in the Italian Progressive rock along with the''New Trolls''.

(The Trip) 1970, for this pioneering outstanding debut album and its peculiar originality of style and the historical importance in the progressive scene, definitely four stars.****

Based in Savona and born in 1969 from the ashes of an English band coming to Italy looking for fortune (Riki Maiocchi & The Trips), The Trip released their first eponymous album (sometimes referred to as Musica Impressionistica) in 1970 on the RCA label with a line up featuring along with founder members Arvid "Wegg" Andersen (bass, vocals) and Billy Gray (guitar, vocals) the Italians Joe Vescovi (organ, vocals) and Pino Sinnone (drums) who stepped in after vocalist Riki Maiocchi, guitarist Ritchie Blackmore and drummer Ian Broad left the original nucleus. As you can guess from the art cover by Up & Down Studio, this is a psychedelic work with influences ranging from Vanilla Fudge to blues-rock...

The opener "Prologo" (Prologue) is an interesting instrumental track that starts by a dark organ solo passage and then goes through the doors of perception turning into something different when the rhythm rises going from bolero to blues. After more than eight minutes this piece gives way to the following "Incubi" (Nightmares), another long psychedelic track with many sparse echoes of classical music and jazzy organ passages that tells of a nightmarish, restless night haunted by crawling visions in a mad flight through the unconscious, waiting for the morning sun...

The long, apocalyptic "Visioni dell'aldilà" (Visions from the afterlife) opens the second side of the LP and, like the previous track, despite the Italian title is sung in English. According to an interview with Pino Sinnone, this piece was inspired by some Hieronymus Bosch's tableaux and combines dark organ passages, soaring harmony vocals and the fiery instrumental flights of a wild and free soul with coloured, impressionistic lyrics...

"Riflessioni" (Reflections) is another piece sung in English mixing rock, blues and gospel and dealing with religion, time passing by and the mystery of life. The surreal, lively closer "Una pietra colorata" (A coloured stone) is the only track sung in Italian. Here the music and lyrics conjure up the image of a lonely, talking coloured stone at the bottom of the sea that eventually falls in love with another stone put nearby...

On the whole, a good album that marks the transition from beat and psychedelia to progressive rock in Italy.