AGUA

Despite the name, this album is not the offspring of Deborah Harry and Samantha Fox. It's actually singer Mirko DeFox Galliazzo and multi-instrumentalist Paul Blondie Gidoni. The music, while mostly falling into the arena rock genre, is surprisingly endearing.

As I stated, the songs are very much arena-like in sound. Galliazzo's screeching voice reminds me of many 80's hair bands. It's Gidoni's instrumentation and songwriting that helps this album transcend the genre. The guitar solos are not spectacular, but always tasteful. And the keyboards are never overbearing, yet they provide a complexity that gives the album enough prog creds to gain them access to this site.

the album is very short, but it packs a wallop.

A discovery of Mauro Moroni and Mellow Records, Blondie Fox was a 90's Italian duo, formed around singer Mirko "DeFox" Galliazzo and multi-instrumentalist Paul "Blondie" Gidoni, who both had a metal background, having played with the Metal group X-Hero.With Blondie Fox they were trying to break into new, more experimental grounds and their first recordings were associated by Nuvole di Paglia's Franco Serena and producer Aldo Menti at his studio in Valdagno.Their debut ''Aqua'' came out in 1996.

Now this is an album prooving that not anyone can play decent Prog/Art Rock.Apparently the Italians were a bit stuck in their past and the combination of new and old stylings sounds pretty directionless, unfocused and often hillarious.With an annoying drum machine and Galliazzo's high-pitched voice not suiting well with the style, Blondie Fox experimented with atmospheric soundscapes surrounded by hard-rockin' guitars and background synthesizers in a work that struggles to find a particular path to be built upon.So ''Agua'' contains echoes of acts such as ASGARD, BLACK JESTER, GARDEN WALL and the likes and add some Glam Metal/Hard Rock in the mix along with some bizarre distortions/effects, which seem to lead nowhere.Short keyboard instrumentals are followed by pompous Hard Prog with a crying voice and some nice guitar soloing but no more than that.This ends up to be totally incosistent with the changing climates hurting the album as a whole.Lack of decent instrumental moves or trully memorable material are negative factors as well.Moreover ''Agua'' lasts shorter than half an hour, which is pretty embarassing.

Reputedly the duo revisited Menti's White Studio for the recordings of a second album, which was said to be more interesting, but this one was never published.The only other document by Blondie Fox before their demise is the participation on Mellow Records' tribute album ''Zarathustra's revenge'', covering Il Balletto di Bronzo's ''Neve calda''.

''Agua'' is of less interest among prog fans.A mix of keyboard orchestrations, Hard Rock and lyrical Metal with no coherence, held down also by a mediocre recording process and sound quality.Not among a music fan's priorities.

Italy's Blondie Fox released this sole release, Agua, in 1997. It's hard to say what the influences of this duo really are. Vocalist-percussionist Mirko Galliazzo and multi-instrumentalist Paul Gidoni seem to combine Synthpop, Prog [at times, it's just not Prog], otherwise-Electronic and Metal throughout, for an interesting mix of sonics. The next most peculiar item is that, digitally available, Agua is far shorter than what we have here, brought down to just 10 songs lasting fewer than 30 minutes. For fullest, briefest context, I added Blondie Fox to a section of my List in which I listen to strictly the top 10 tracks (at that time), and... here we are. 10 tracks.

And from the get-go, starting with "Florence Poetry", I had no idea what to truly expect with the first strikes of the guitar. And the direction was quite different still from what that first sound alluded to my ears. The vocals of Galliazzo are absolutely striking, reminiscent, confusingly enough, to classic Metal [and its 'Power' category]; specifically at times Bruce Dickerson (Iron Maiden). Around minute 2, there was a surprisingly super cool shift in rhythm, as the at-times convincing drum machine adds to the complexity, readying us for a guitar solo. Some of the Midi(?) programming feels sloppy. We love the human element, but it's times like these where I'd give suggestion elsewhere: Michael P. Dawson, for instance (though instrumental, if memory serves). [Now that I've finished the album, I honestly hardly know what they were going for half the time...] Anyhow, it is rather interesting, though. There's some good things here. A markedly more successful track is the metallic, instrumental "Waterfalls", prominently here I assume to be the album feature Roberto Brenna on lead guitar.

Moving right along, we get the dark-ethereal "Eterno etereo limbo", the first of a few tracks I would assume to be interludes. "Randagio" is a more upbeat track, still glancing back to a few disparate Pop idioms simultaneously (and I guess the '90s was a time to do just that). The guitar playing, in my opinion, is the strongest item throughout. Compositionally, though, this held the most interest thus far. Next, the titular "Agua" is another interlude with these Midi bells that I honestly really love; reminsicent of Ian Taylor's early '00s OST for RuneScape. Then 'Bruce' returns (haha) on "Nero sottofondo", met with a faux-ensemble chorus. It's a bit cheesy at times, I guess like Kiss...? Once again, the real winner, if any, is the lead guitar.

Our next sub-minute 'lude is "Nuova era", a sparse electric piano... And I mean sparse. This is followed by the plastic 'strings' of "Forse tornerai". And I just... don't know why either of these were included on the album at all haha. "Io" is next, a low and slow track with, I guess, far-off "All My Love" synths... and the most tortured, awful vocals I have heard in a while. Is he going for gothic Robert Plant now?... It's doing whatever the opposite of 'working' is... Grating and awkward. The most progressive of the bunch, and that is not a joke, but likewise as confusingly put together, composed and produced as possible. And that's that. Enjoy?