AREA

"Area" is a compilation album of Area that was released in 2013. "Area" has 3 CD's, 2 studio CD's with 18 tracks and 1 live CD with 7 tracks. The 18 studio tracks were taken from their first four studio albums. So, it has five tracks from their debut "Arbeit Macht Frei" released in 1973, three tracks from their second "Caution Radiation Area" released in 1974, five tracks from their third "Crac!" released in 1975 and six tracks from their fourth "Maledetti" released in 1976. The 7 live tracks were taken mainly from their live albums, "Are(A)zione" released in 1975 and "Event '76" released in 1979.

"Area" has twenty-five tracks. About the studio tracks, from "Arbeit Macht Frei" we have "Luglio, Agosto, Settembre (Nero)", "Arbeit Macht Frei", "Consapevolezza", "Le Labbra Del Tempo" and "L'Abbattimento Dello Zeppelin". "Luglio, Agosto, Settembre (Nero)" is difficult to describe. It's built around ethnic and traditional music, probably from Greece with an Arabic feminine voice reciting a poem. It's one their finest moments. "Arbeit Macht Frei" is close to avant-garde jazz, very innovative, typifying the band to a new and unconventional musical approach. It's a great moment of Area. "Consapevolezza" is a fantastic jazz/rock piece with exotic atmospheres. It has a hypnotic rhythm and the suggestive vocals invite us to the freedom. "Le Labbra Del Tempo" is a complex track influenced by jazz with great rock sections. It changes very often in its structure with great musical passages. "L'Abbattimento Dello Zeppelin" is very avant-garde with many experimental noises by different musical instruments, including the voice of Demetrio Stratos. It's a weird and bizarre track. From "Caution Radiation Area" we have "Cometa Rossa", "Bruijo" and "Mirage". "Cometa Rossa" is built around ethnic and traditional music with influences of Arabic music. It's close to "Luglio, Agosto, Settembre (Nero)". "Bruijo" is a wild track that opens in a chaotic way with a total improvisation. It's a free jazz/fusion track with great electric piano, bass, percussions and guitar works. "Mirage" has a mix of a contemporary classical music and free and avant- garde jazz/fusion music. It's one of the scariest musical moments ever created by Area. From "Crac!" we have "L'Elefante Bianco", "La Mela Di Odessa", "Megalopoli", "Nervi Scoperti" and "Gioia E Rivoluzione". "L'Elefante Bianco" is an instrumental full of energy with Eastern ethnic influences and nuances of the southern Mediterranean music. "La Mela Di Odessa" is a complex track that begins with experimental sounds and a drum solo. It's a typical jazz rock fusion track with symphonic tendencies. "Megalopoli" is a great instrumental track, intricate and full of energy influenced by the jazz rock fusion style. "Nervi Scoperti" is an instrumental with nice guitar and keyboard solos. It's a vibrant and tense piece where the drumming is the star. "Gioia E Rivoluzione" is an acoustic peaceful song. It features acoustic guitars and powerful melodic lines. It shows a tendency to be a more conventional and a less intricate track. From "Maledetti" we have "Evaporazione", "Diforisma Urbano", "Gerontocrazia", "Giro, Giro, Tondo" and "Caos (Parte Seconda)". "Evaporazione" is a short track with someone running, whistling and talking with no music. "Diforisma Urbano" is an instrumental, a perfect, fantastic and surprisingly upbeat funk jazz/fusion track. It's one of their finest tracks. "Gerontocrazia" is a great track that shows the interest of Area in the ethnic music. Besides several influences, the influence of Gentle Giant is present too. "Giro, Giro, Tondo" is a typical avant-garde jazz/fusion track with emotional vocals highlighted by a piano performance. It's another track with Gentle Giant's influence. "Caos (Parte Seconda)" is an avant-garde track. It's strange and chaotic with electronic sounds, noises, voices and it's full of experimentations.

About the live CD, "Luglio, Agosto, Settembre (Nero)" and "La Mela Di Odessa" are also present with its live versions. "Are(A)zione" was never released on one of their studio albums. It's a great track with free improvisation of a harmonic invention, a new theme. "L'Internazionale" is a vanguard free associative experimentation of the communist hymn, "The International". It was released for the first time as a band's single in 1974. "Caos II Parte I", which is one of the two parts of "Caos", and "Event '76" were released on "Event '76". "Caos" is a wild avant-garde sound clutter, a kind of a bizarre but fascinating free-jazz rock decorated with the crazy vocal acrobatics of Stratos. "Event '76" shows Area in a random improvisation with each musician improvising. The result is an "ordered chaos". "Danza Ad Anello" was released on "Tic & Tac", an album after Stratos' death. It's a good instrumental track clearly influenced by the jazz/rock style music.

Conclusion: "Area" is a good compilation album from the band that covers almost all the career of Area in the time with Demetrio Stratos. It brings to us most of the tracks released on their four and most accomplished studio albums. Still, I really think that it's a pity that "Area" doesn't has any track from their fifth and last studio work with Stratos, "1978 - Gli Dei Se Ne Vanno, Gli Arrabbiati Restano!" that was released in 1978. It's a pity because that album remains to me as one of the greatest works of Area. Anyway, that doesn't haunt the good quality and a relatively well representativeness of the band's music. So, if we want to be fair we must say that "Area" is a good compilation of this amazing prog band.

Prog is my Ferrari. Jem Godfrey (Frost*)