ORME

"How many times I've dreamt to change, to wake up in the morning and not to recognize myself, loose the sense of time and space..."

Curously the big change was near for Le Orme, being Orme the last studio album with the keyboards of Toni Pagliuca. The end of an era. A little river of sadness flows through all the tracks, nothing's prog in it, though. The sound is now declined to a soft and melodic pop music. Only the well known gentle and warm vocals of Aldo Tagliapietra remains...

I was interested in listening to Orme because of the guest appearence on violin by Angelo Branduardi in "25 Maggio del 1931"...what a disappointment, though! A reggae- influenced song...not exactly what I was expecting! Violin cannot give the track a more "higher feel"...

By the way, there's a song I like to listen to: the good "Diventare" ("To Become") some lyrics of which I've translated at the beginning of this review. Nice piano and words, mellow feminine choruses, sweet atmosphere...

Nothing more, yet. An album good only for completionists!

Well, I think that this album is not "progressive" at all. The early seventies magic here seem to be gone and the artistic feeling between Aldo Tagliapietra and Toni Pagliuca seem vanished too: Aldo Tagliapietra here is in charge of almost all the songwriting and Toni Pagliuca signs only one song, the weak "25 maggio 1931"... Toni Pagliuca left the band the following year because of "artistic reasons", to follow a solo career that probably would deserve more attention. The album was produced by Mario Lavezzi, but the sound is very "poppish" and quite disappointing.

Anyway, you can always find here some good songs and the peculiar voice of Aldo Tagliapietra. "Diventare" is a good track with inspired lyrics and a nice refrain; the bittersweet "Se tu sorridi brucia il mondo", "Chi sono io" (lyrics inspired by a poem of Khalil Gibran) and "Ritrovare te" are not bad, but in the whole the sound of the album is far away from the progressive-rock mood of the 70's and Le Orme seem to act here as "the heroes of a finished era", risking to "sink into a see of indifference". Definitely this is the wrong album to listen to if you're not familiar with this band (if you don't know Le Orme's music it's better begin with "Felona e Sorona" and "Antologia 1970-1980"). I can suggest it only to the die-hard fans of the band...

The perfect example of contemporary (at the time) sound picture. The album was recorded in 1990 and it sounds exactly as any other weak pop-rock album from the era. It's not enough 80's to have that cheesy synth-pop sound, it's not enough 90's to sound like a rock revival.

The album is horrible. That is, the songwriting is horrible, the melodies are forgettable, the sounds are dreadful.

"L'universo" starts like an atmospheric techno pop tune in the vein of PET SHOP BOYS and that's the only good thing I can say about it. Unfortunately, very soon the..ehm.."drums" and "guitar" kick in and we have the track arranged in the worst EROS RAMAZZOTTI style (no offense to EROS' fans, Ii like some of his songs too, and he is miles away sound-wise anyway). The second song, "Terra Antica" is even less memorable. Heavily processed vocals are really annoying. The whole thing is overproduced and it sounds so "precious". There's a kitsch solo so swamped in reverb effect it's difficult to say is it guitar or a saxophone.

I had some expectations for "Dublino Addio", if nothing else, some poppy Irish tune. But no. Rhythm-section are those programmed electronic drum machines, and that's the BEST part of the song, it slightly resembles 80's Peter Gabriel. "Diventare" starts with unaccompanied pseudo-classical (wow!) "piano" solo that last for about 10 seconds. The "piano" is, of course some crystal Yamaha DX7 or Korg M1 thing. The rest of this pile is swamped in reverb on all instruments, plus annoying female back vocals.

"25 Maggio 1931" features ANGELO BRANDUARDI on violin. It starts almost nice, like a 80's atmospheric ballad utilising synth pads, but very soon it degenerates to the cheapest digital reggae-pop. Violin solo barely sounds like a violin, it's so mutilated with sound processing. Melody is not worth mentioning.

"Se tu sorridi brucia il mondo" starts with arpeggiated synth and chorused guitar. Again, that horrible reverb on vocals. But I would forgive that if only the whole song had continued in that pace. Again, slightly artsy-fartsy feeling, something between cheesiest DIRE STRAITS and cheesiest Peter Gabriel. Drums ruined everything, but there was not much to ruin at first place.

"Chi sono io" starts with that awful "orchestra hit" synth sounds. Everything else is awful beyond description. Another song that starts with more or less decent "piano" pattern is "Ritrovare te". This one contains some guitar riff buried under all that digital swamps.

"L'indifferenza" is the title that describes listener's emotions best. Wow, this one is almost rocking. Nevermind the stupid and derived chords.

In conclusion, avoid this one. If you are by some chance a fan of the cheesiest sounds and production from the late 80's and early 90's, avoid this one. That says something about the actual songs and songwriting. Every melody on this album (I'm calling them melodies only from the musical theory point of view) could slightly resemble (if you try very hard) some other song from the 80's that you probably know, only a resembled one will be a light year better.

This is not only an album that deserves the lowest rating; this is one of the worst albums I heard in my life.

I really wonder what was the kick to release such a poor record eight years after another one "Venerdi"?

IMHHO, their last great effort was the excellent "Storia O Leggenda" (one of their best albums released in 1977). What came later were semi classical oriented albums or dreadful electro oriented ones.

This album belongs to the latter category. Even if some emotional vocals are featured during "Diventare". One of the very few bearable songs from this offering. But don't expect anything like their great and wonderful music of the seventies. This song is just above average from their weakest period, no more.

It is obvious that "Le Orme" had nothing interesting to propose with this album. "Le Orme" was released in 1990, ages after their last studio effort. And this one clocks at thirty five minutes which is sufficently representative of their poor inspiration at that time. And after all, it is better that way. At least one doesn't spend too much time in discovering such a poor work.

Even a reggae track is featured. Is this Italian reggae? I don't know. The only thing I am sure of is that "25 maggio 1931" sounds like s**t. The only song deserving a mention is "Se tu Sorridi Brucia il Mondo". At least it features very good and subtle vocals from Aldo Tagliapietra. But of course this is no big news since he provided this great feeling for about twenty years already.

IMO, if it was only to produce such a poor (to say the least) record, "Le Orme" should have called it quit some years ago. But they will come back later with better stuff. Still, this one doesn't deserves more than one star (and this is even overrated). Don't ever bother to listen to this crappy album.

Nobody here (I hope) really enjoys writing negative reviews, especially about a favorite band fallen on hard times. Nevertheless I feel obliged, strictly as a public service, to warn fans away from (Le) Orme's self-titled career nadir, released at the tail end of the anti-Prog 1980s.

Without wanting to repeat my belated tirade against their 1982 studio sell-out "Venerdi", I'll just say the music here makes the worst compromises of '80s YES and GENESIS sound downright avant-garde by comparison. If morbid curiosity, stubborn fanboy loyalty, or some form of insidious retroactive masochism should bring you within earshot of the album, expect a lot of schmaltzy, radio-friendly ballads, all bathed in a coagulating syrup of synthetic strings and passive rhythms, lacking even the tepid New Wave energy of its predecessor.

Years later, talking about the youthful Progressive idealism of the band's earliest efforts, frontman Aldo Tagliapietra would say, "What we wanted to do was change the world, change the music, and change society" (quoting from Will Romano's book "Mountains in the Sky: the Illustrated History of Progressive Rock"). In the end the opposite happened: the world, and society, changed them. But the less said about this unfortunate phase of Le Orme's career, the better.

So, enough already.