MARCO SFOGLI

Marco Sfogli is a Progressive Metal artist from Napoli, Italy. He learned the guitar by playing it along with recordings of his heroes, including "Dream Theater" and has played on solo albums by James Labrie and Jordan Rudess. He has released a solo album in 2008 and another in 2012. His third solo album "Homeland" was released on February 22. 2019. He plays both guitars and keyboards on this album and bass on track 5. All other instruments are played by guest musicians.

The album Homeland is pretty much what you would expect from a solo progressive metal artist. The guitar playing is the highlight, and Marco is a great guitarist. "The 12th Hour", "Corrosion" and "Get Away With It" are all led by melodic metal with progressive leanings, some tricky passages and rhythms, some with more supporting keyboards than others, but without any of these tracks standing out from the other. "Dawn" is a slower ballad done very nicely with keyboards but again led by a melodic guitar. Again, mostly typical guitar god solos, but at a slower tempo.

"Homeland" has a more with a pop fusion sound, leaving behind the metal aspect pretty much by playing a more accessible sound. "Speed Limit" goes back to the metal sound. The middle section is interesting in that it trades back and forth from pop to a rapid fire metal sound washed by synths, but again, its all been done before. "The Travel" is a very short atmospheric track with guitar and synths. It's really too quick to amount to much. "Superwave" is more of the same guitar god style soloing with a heavy tone. "Inner Light" leads off with a piano solo and synth effects. This lasts for over a minute but is soon interrupted by more guitar heaviness. More of the same.

There is no doubt that Sfogli is a great guitar player, and that there is some progressiveness in there, but not a lot, and this has all been done before a million times. Guitar lovers will love this, and can add it to their Steve Vai and Ygwie Malmsteen collections, but it all sound too typical. Nothing stands out really, just good guitar work.

Second solo album released in 2012 named reMarcoble is another worthy afair, at same level with predecesor. Groovy guitar parts, nice chops and intresting arrangements overall. The music is varied from funky parts to prog metal passages, Sfogli manage to create something worth investigated. With influences from Vai, Tony McAlpine in some parts, Sfogli delivers what he know best, great guitar chops all over. For example one of the most intresting pieces is for sure The forest with a jazzy fusion attitude with very solid keybord solo hammond more precise and aswell some sax parts. So, Marco Sfogli even is less known for his solo career, he definetly needs attention, his both albums are worthy for prog metal fans. Again 3.5 stars.

Marco Sfogli is one of the most talented prog metal guitarists in last decade, mostly known for his contribution on James LaBrie first solo album Elements of prsiasion. Also he has colaborations with excellent keyboard player Alex Argento, Jordan Rudess or John Macaluso and apart from this he has a solo career. First album released under his name There's hop issued in 2008 is a fairly solid instrumental prog metal with many excellent ideas overall. Sfogli playes besides guitar , keyboards and bass on some pieces, the helping hand is coming again from members he well known and work, Alex Argento, Macaluso or the top notch keybord player Matt Guillory among others. The music is as I said instrumental, but is not a boring moment here, he manage to incorporates beside prog metal elements some fusion passages, the result is great, the pieces flows from one to another very well. Sfogli is a crafted musician, maybe in places has some Satriani feel, but overall the album is great. Lots of breaks, nice guitar chops, and solid rhythmic section. A musician to look in the future, because worth it. 3.5 stars for sure.

Recently I checked out all the prog metal stream tracks on progarchives I didn't know yet and did a quick rating of everything I heard (appr. 60 new tracks !). The winner of this competition was ... this new artist I never heard of before, mr Marco Sfogli. I found out he worked with the DT-stars James LaBrie and Jordan Rudess, so it's not really a surprise that this guitarist appeared to be a really great one. I was blown away already by the stream track Andromeda which appeared a very melodic one and sounding like John Petrucci on Suspended Animation. And then we are talking about the highest league of guitarists in my opinion.

Another great guitarist that he can be compared with is Joe Satriani but I think the comparison with Petrucci is more adequate. The album is 100% instrumental so it's quite logic that Satriani comes to mind but as we know Joe is not on our site and everything considered I agree with that because if you listen to Satriani and Sfogli carefully you can hear an obvious difference in approach of guitar music. In fact this is an interesting test why an artist is or is not progressive. I possess about 5 albums of Satriani but none of them is truly progressive in my perception. But listening to Sfogli's style I think it's fair to say that the music is more complex, more varied and also more original and therefore rightly added to the site.

The conclusion is that this is a very promising debut that even comes close to the maximum score for me but as it is a little exaggerated to call this album a masterpiece I will leave it at 4 stars (4,25). Highly recommended for those who get intrigued by a blend of Suspended Animation by Petrucci and Crystal Planet by Satriani.