ANTOLOGIA 1970-1980

The very idea of an anthology of Le Orme's classic period, plus the less classic period that followed it, strikes me as absurdly overreaching. In general, Le Orme's albums were best listened to as a unit, in which the whole is decidedly more than the sum of its parts. So while this is undeniably a collection of good songs, it's first flaw is that, in the right company, they would be great songs. The second flaw is the inclusion of material which, although temporally situated in the 1970s, is stylistically firmly entrenched in the 1960s psych sound. Four songs were included from "Collage", which, while not bad, have far more in common with The Doors than with what le Orme would be associated later. Also, a CD of 16 tracks taken from 8 albums should not include 8 tracks from the first 2 albums. While the other sourced album is maybe their best, "Uomo di Pezza", this is actually problematic because the lack of context is more glaring in its delegates than in the lone representatives of other albums.

Does anything work here? Yes, plenty actually, the remainder of the CD features one, at most 2 tracks from a variety of the band's 1970s efforts, and they have been well chosen. Among the highlights are "Verita Nascoste" featuring superb violin, the great pop rock tune "Canzone D'Amore", the catchy and hypnotic "Se io iavora" from "Storia o Leggenda", "Felona", and the acoustic delight "Fine di un viaggio" from their last 1970s album, "Florian". What is somewhat misleading is the preponderance of songs that were track 2 on the original LPs, which for le Orme was traditionally where they placed an acoustic ballad.

This anthology is a good but not ideal introduction to Le Orme which might also suit those who have a few of their 1970s albums and want to fill in the gaps with highlights from others. Just don't expect the original concepts, musical or otherwise, to survive the translation to this compilation.

So today a vast amount of bands have been confirmed to perform in the BajaProg festival the next year, one of them are the legend itself, Le Orme and believe me that i am very happy because i have never seen them in concert, so it will be amazing. The fact is, that after knowing that news, i remembered i had something called "Antologia" lost in some part of my room, so i managed to find it and listen to it.

As i usually say, a compillation is for me the easiest thing to review, and the easiest to read and listen of course. "Antologia" is the name of this compllation by this Italian monster which was released in the early 90`s and features only songs from 1970 to 1980. While some of you may think that the compilation have their best songs, let me tell you that that its not exactly what i could say, of course it has some memorable songs from their best and better known albums, but it has also weaker / poppier songs, so i would say this compilation is a nice balance of all their different moments through those years.

Musically talking, we will listen to either the beautiful symphonic moments, some older songs with a 60`s psych oriented sound (withouth being psych songs of course) all together with Tagliapetra`s vocals and the music of himself, Tony Pagliuca and Micchi di Rosi, oh my god what a band and i will see them at last!

Some of my favorite moments here are "Collage", "Gioco di Bomba", "Figure di Cartone" and "Era Inverno" for instance, though i enjoy the whole set, i believe this compillation is not the best, i may say it is a nice introduction to people who hardly know them, but this time i would rather recommend to listen to their studio albums; the compillation deserves 3 stars, good but non-essential.

This is probably one if not the shortest review i`ve written recently, but who cares, i am very happy for the news and i want to share it with you, what better with an album`s opinion.

Enjoy it!