SAD MINSTREL

The use of narratives is by no means new in the Tolkien and sci fi obsessed world of prog. What is different here is that the storytelling is part sung and part spoken and melds with the music, which is not relegated to the background during these passages, and the vocals themselves span a wide emotional range. Just listen to the opener "Mad Mistrel", which builds from quiet gentility to a dual organ-lead guitar attack before Casanova injects his angst driven diatribe, or the equally wrenching and more acoustically chrystalline title cut. "Silent Revolution" is more ponderous and martial in tempo, but even this restriction does not hold Casanova back in his melodramatic rantings. The flipside is the divine "Friend of Mine", which evokes the more reflective early work of the English neo folk group OSTARA.

Only one track, " Canzone della Bambina di Triora", is actually sung in Italian. It begins with whistles conjuring open landscapes of yore, before becoming a full fledged celtic progressive rock gem. The closer, the wondrously named "Wood of Memories", develops similarly but again reverts to the spoken style. The latter parts are simply string synthesizer bliss for those like myself that revel in such guilty pleasures, and they also recap the original suspenseful theme of the opener. Great stuff.

If you wish that prog-celtic was a booming sub genre of progressive music, or if you want to diversify a predominately metal or heavy collection with something more gentle but still edgy, I suggest you stop being a sad minstrel and listen to one instead.

The marquee song is the title track, in which Casanova (really – is that his actual name?!) melds chanting and shouting vocals with a persistent beat and heavy guitar in a rollicking version of the mythical Phoenix’s tale of destruction and resurrection, all with a uniquely Italian warm-blooded sense of theatrics and passion. A truly inspiring piece of music.

The opening track is more subdued in tone, but a read of the lyrics sheds some light on the dark nature of these songs:

“Betrayed by false friends after timeless deceptions, by witches and bitches he once loved so much; by the cyclical tricks of his private obsessions – he watched in the mirror and saw his brain crack”

Indeed.

The Italian-vocal tracks tend to be more elaborated than the English ones, accented by digital flourishes and an abundance of the whistle that sounds like a wooden flute and carries the tempo to fanciful heights and dark lows. These are the embellishing tracks on the album that serve to both separate the heavier English songs and leave an indelible Latin mark on the work as a whole.

Not that every track stands out. The spoken-word “Silent Revolution” comes off as more of a stage play scene than a musical composition, and the long closing track “The wood of Memories” tends to drag on under the weight of the synthesized strings just a bit too long (and in the course of doing so teeters ever-so-close to sounding like one of the transitional pieces on Jeff Wayne’s ‘War of the Worlds’).

But overall this is a charming and engaging collection of animated and vibrant folk-tinged tunes with very modern treatments. A four star effort without a doubt, and a fun album I would recommend to just about any progressive music fan. Well worth adding to your collection.

peace