INGRANAGGI DELLA VALLE

Review Nº 556

Ingranaggi Della Valle is an Italian prog band from Rome created with the goal of evoking the sound and atmospheres of the historical prog rock of the 70's, creating their own music open to fusion, ethnic and jazz-rock influences. The project was born in the end of 2010 with Flavio Gonnelllini, Mattia Liberati, Edoardo Arrigo and Shanti Colucci. The band began playing jazz fusion and funk/rock evolving their style moving to a new way of composition who binds vintage prog and jazz with a new and personal style. Marco Gennarini joined the band and, searching for a front man with great voice and theatrical skills, the band found Igor Leone. So, Ingranaggi Della Valle music vein could be created.

Their debut studio album is the representative manifesto of their music and philosophy. The band entered in the studio for the recordings using exclusively vintage instruments as Mellotron M400, Hammond B3 Organ, Mini Moog Voyager, Electric Piano and Elka Synthex. Mattias Olsson from Anglagard gave the band some arrangement suggestions playing also a track as special guest and the great David Jackson heard the demo and was enthusiastic to play flute and sax as guest in the final track of the album. "In Hoc Signo" was analog recorded for a vintage sound with fresh and new ideas.

So, "In Hoc Signo" is the debut studio album of Ingranaggi Della Valle and was released in 2013. The line up on the album is Igor Leone (vocals), Flavio Gonnellini (backing vocals and electric and acoustic guitars), Mattia Liberati (Hammond B3, Mellotron M400, Fender Rhodes MK II, Mini Moog, Mini Moog Voyager, Korg MS20, Elka Synthex, Jen SX1000 and Clavia Nord Stage Revision B), Marco Gennarini (backing vocals and violin) and Shanti Colucci (drums, percussion, nagara, Tibetan bells and vocalese. The album had also the participation of Angelica Saupret Scutti and Beatrice Miglieta (backing vocals), Luciano Colucci (Indian speech), Fabrizio Proietti (classical guitar), David Jackson (saxophone and flute), Marco Bruno and Edoardo Arrigo (bass), Simone Massimi (fretted, fretless and upright electric basses) and Mattias Olsson (drums, percussion, synthesizer and noises).

"In Hoc Signo" is a conceptual album set in the First Crusade. Musically, the album is mainly focused in two types of prog music. First we can see the influences of the music of the Italian classic prog rock bands, especially Banco Del Mutuo Soccorso, Le Orme, Premiata Forneria Marconi and Area. Second we can see influences of the jazz-rock fusion style of foreign classic prog acts like Mahavishnu Orchestra, Return To Forever, Weather Report and Allan Holdsworth.

"Introduzione" is a short atmospheric introductory piece. "Cavalcata" has a hard edged fusion sound. It's an energetic and powerful jam piece. As the piece evolves it gets fast, paced and powerful. Keyboards open "Mare In Tempesta". This is an energized piece with an instrumental movement that's got a lot of fusion in the mix. "Via Egnatia" starts with a space rock sound that builds gradually with fast changes. Then it explodes out into a jam that turns out into a retro sounding jazz segment. "L'Assedio Di Antiochia" takes on some Celtic hints. Then it shifts to harder rocking music in the mix. Vocals join over a fast paced progressive rock jam. "Fuga Da Amman" starts mellow and melodic and builds out to a high energy prog rock jam very tasty. There are dramatic shifts towards the music and a powerful instrumental interplay that continues all over it. "Kairuv'an" takes us through several shifts and changes. It's a pure fusion piece. Some hints of rock sound emerge. But, after a time, they work it out into full melodic prog rock. "Masqat" is mostly an instrumental piece. There's a cool bass groove with violin solos over the top, as the other instruments are add to the jamming. Then a melodic prog rock emerges. In "Jangala Mem" the atmosphere becomes darker, almost mystical. It has a melodic fusion jam where drums shine. It has a hard rocking guitar section with violin solos over the top. The piece keeps evolving and shifting. "Il Vento Del Tempo" opens with atmospheric tones. Weird vocals emerge and a bit of weirdness give way to a frantic prog jam. Several changes take over and a vocal section is one of the most effective movements of the whole album. "Finale" works out as a melodic prog jam. It takes us through a number of changes that turns it into a more melodic progressive rock. It has a restatement of some of the main themes to end the piece nicely.

Conclusion: I have always been a huge fan of RPI, and these guys have certainly brought together influences from the Italian classic prog bands with the incredible jazz/fusion style of many classic prog bands, to create something that has multiple layers and an incredible depth. But, especially for a debut effort, what Ingranaggi Della Valle have achieved here is really pretty impressive and it's virtually impossible not to recommend this album to those who revel in the styles in which this band is specialized. For being homogeneously consistent and brilliant, it's not worth highlighting tracks. Unusually deep and rich for a band's first effort, "In Hoc Signo" is simply one of the finest and best debuts for a progressive rock group in the most recent years. For all those who like the above mentioned bands this is a must have.

Prog is my Ferrari. Jem Godfrey (Frost*)

"Warm Spaced Blue" is the second album by Roman band Ingranaggi della Valle and was released in 2016 on the independent label Black Widow Records with a renewed line up featuring founder members Mattia Liberati (Hammond B3, Mellotron, Fender Rhodes Mk V, Mini-Moog, piano, backing vocals), Flavio Gonnellini (electric guitars, backing vocals), Marco Gennarini (violin, backing vocals) and Shanti Colucci (drums, percussions) along with Davide Savarese (vocals, glockenspiel), Antonio Coronato (electric bass) and Alessandro Di Sciullo (electric and acoustic guitars, Moog, Mellotron, Roland TR 808 and TR 909, Akai MPC Touch, Korg Kaoss Pad KP 3, electronics, backing vocals) plus some prestigious guests such as Fabio Pignatelli (bass), Florian Lechner (narrative vocals), Stefano Vicarelli (synthesizer) and Paolo Lucini (flute). If compared with their previous album, the sound is darker and, in some way, bolder and more experimental. According to the band, this is a concept album sui generis, inspired by H.P. Lovecraft's literary work, ghost stories and Gothic atmospheres dealing with "the relation between self-conscious and collective unconscious". Anyway, there is more focus on music than on lyrics and you can enjoy the album even without the help of a Jungian key to analyse the complexity of the concept while the art cover and the pictures in the booklet by Jacopo Tiberi could give a clue of what the music is about...

The disquieting opener "Call For Cthulhu: Orison" introduces the subject matter with an invocation to the return of a fallen god, the one who can sweep away laws and morals overcoming the difference between good and evil, restoring universal freedom... "The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age..." (quote from H.P. Lovecraft, "The Call Of Cthulhu").

"Inntal" takes us in the eerie woods of the Inn Valley drawing pastoral landscapes and spectral shadows for a Gothic tale where fear can drive you crazy. The narrative vocals in German, the short lyrics in English, the music and the picture in the booklet evoke the ghost of a drowned girl and the irrepressible force that can attract you in her fatal arms and then push you into the void of the night...

The short instrumental "Call For Cthulhu: Through The Stars" takes you for a nightmarish trip into the deep ocean where you can experience an oneiric vision of the submarine corpse-city of R'lyeh, "home of great Cthulhu and his hordes, hidden in green slimy vaults...".

The following "Lada Niva" is a bit lighter and dreamy. It describes the troubles of the ghost of an old man hanging on his memories and who can't forget his old car and the sound of the rain on its wind-shield, making very difficult for him the last step into the afterlife. Then it's the turn of the mysterious "Ayida Wedo", a beautiful instrumental track whose title refers to the Rainbow Serpent of the Voodoo culture and to its double personality...

The long, complex "Call For Cthulhu: Promise" evokes in music and words claustrophobic atmospheres and cosmic journeys across the unknown territories of the mind. The promise of a spiritual rebirth and the hope for a come back from the abyss close an album that is really worth listening to...

A work that is teeming with brilliant ideas and offers superb vocal parts. The musicians have excellent technique. But that doesn't suit me. I think the concern comes from the compositions themselves. I have the impression of listening to Quella Vecchia Loccanda who wants to play jazz-rock but cannot do so, because of the violin parts with a classical tendency, badly associated with jazz. The problem certainly comes from there, moreover: an over-use of jazz gimmicks which bring nothing to the compositions. The tracks do not include a real guideline, we have the impression of a long mastered improvisation, a bit like a jam-session where many minor / major transitions destabilize the listening. Moreover, it is almost impossible to know where the pieces start and stop because these (sometimes unfortunate) transitions are so numerous. Are we always listening to the same song, or the next one? They could have glued everything together and made only one track, that there would have been no difference. Even if the central part (Fuga Da Amman / Kairuv'an / Masquat) seems more controlled to me.

I bought In Hoc Signo when it was released (2013) but never managed to appreciate it. Probably good... but non-essential.

Honestly the debut album of Ingranaggi Della Valle actually left me cold, so I didn't have great expectations on this second release. Probably if I hadn't seen Cthulhu mentioned in the titles of two tracks I wouldn't spend anything on that.

HOW I WAS WRONG...

This is an excellent album, dark, atmospheric and with some parts that may classfy the band in the RIO subgenre. Excellently played, full of musical ideas and most of all, able to raise in my mind the sensations that I feel when I read Lovecraft, which is a very difficult task in which very few artists succeeded. But the track that conquered me definitely is Ayida Wedo, which includes a great flute part played by Paolo Lucini, one of the guests artists. On the other tracks there's some good mellotron, anyway.

What else? My Zeuhl receptors have been triggered a couple of times, but more than once I've had the remote impression of the presence of Thierry Zaboitzeff. The voice of Davide Savarese is a perfect fit, and his performance is excellent.

This is one of the best albums I've listened to in 2019, three years after its release, but it's never too late to discover good music, and this is very good.

Review Nº 181

Ingranaggi Della Valle is an Italian progressive rock band from Rome which was created in 2010. The band was created with the goal of evoking the sound and atmospheres of the historical progressive rock of the 70's, creating their own music open to fusion, ethnic and jazz-rock influences. The band released two studio albums until now. Their debut album 'In Hoc Signo', which was released in 2013, is a conceptual album with its concept focused about the times when the first Crusade was made. We can say this is a perfect representative manifesto of their music and philosophy. Just over three years later of their debut, Ingranaggi Della Valle returned with their second album 'Warm Spaced Blue'.

While their debut studio album 'In Hoc Signo' was a tribute to 70's progressive rock music, where the focus was mainly on the instruments and the playing, and less on the song writing and the actual songs, with 'Warm Spaced Blue', they took a different approach and decided to put the focus more on the song writing. But there is another main difference. Also, the tone of this album is darker and reflects the members' personal feelings and situations in their life.

Since their debut album some changes on the line up of the band occurred. But, the main difference was the change of their singer. The change to their new front man David Savarese resulted in the lyrics on this follow up effort, as the title suggests, to be sung in English. And yet with that significant change and one that may bring the band to wider notice, one thing remains clear, lyrics are secondary on this traditional, symphonic, but clearly Italian progressive agenda.

On 'Warm Spaced Blue' the band tried to maintain their stylistic unity without setting boundaries in the arrangement by choosing from a wide range of instruments. All bands' members use a wide range of instruments. While maintaining a jazz approach for writing harmonies the band acquired a big structured rock sound and, as I mentioned before, they introduced English as the singing language. 'Warm Spaced Blue' really highlights some differences from the past.

The line up on the album is Davide Savarese (lead vocals, glockenspiel and Rhodes), Flavio Gonnellini (backing vocals and guitar), Alessandro Di Sciullo (backing vocals, electric and acoustic guitars, Moog Minitaur; Mellotron, Roland TR 808/TR 909, Akai MPC Touch, Korg Kaoss Pad KP 3 and electronics), Mattia Liberati (backing vocals, Hammond B3 , Mellotron, Fender Rodhes Mk V, MiniMoog, MiniMoog Voyager and piano), Marco Gennarini (backing vocaks and bass), Antonio Coronato (bass) and Shanti Colucci (drums and percusiion). The album had also the participation of Fabio Pignatelli (bass and Fx), Stefano Vicarelli (synthesizers), Paolo Lucini (flute) and Florian Lechner (narration).

About the songs, 'Warm Spaced Blue' has only six tracks. The majority of this album is reserved for the suite 'Call For Cthulhu', with more than 20 minutes, which is divided into three parts, 'Orbison', 'Through The Stars' and 'Promise'. In between those three tracks we can find three other songs, 'Inntal', 'Lada Niva' and 'Ayida Wedo'. What is more interesting about the suite is that 'Call For Cthulhu' is separated between the other songs. So, the suite is separated by the first, third and sixth tracks. 'Call For Cthulhu' has an experimental character by the use of modern electronics. Through the suite we can immediately know this is a very special album and a special band. This is true progressive rock music and I had to think of bands like Anglagard and Echolyn, not because their music is sounding like the music of those bands but because this band is also in the premiership of progressive rock. Certainly it wasn't a coincidence that Mattias Olsson of Anglagard participated on their debut. 'Inntal' is a song with great flute atmospheres. It's a real jazz-rock song, also with great guitar parts. Somehow it reminds me of King Crimson and Anekdoten, which isn't a strange think due to the use of the Mellotron. 'Lada Niva' develops itself also into a 70's progressive rock song, with some jazzy influences. It's a great song with great diversity. On 'Ayida Wedo' the sound gets more or less stronger and is a little bit aggressive. The song is instrumental. I confess the vocals aren't in the lead of this album, as I wrote before.

Conclusion: 'Warm Spaced Blue' is a brilliant album. Interestingly, Italian progressive rock has its own style, slightly baroque and absolutely opinionated. This is a real interesting approach of composing music. It's indicated for lovers of jazz rock/fusion. But above all, it's particularly indicated for lovers of the 70's progressive rock music if you love instruments in their real and own mode. However, this isn't an easy album to digest. There is a high standard of playing and of song writing but the album is very hard to grasp after the just one hearing. One definitely needs to listen to it more often, to get the whole thing and to keep up with the quick changes of passages and moods. This is heavy stuff, but still very well played and more original than some other bands that just copy their heroes' styles. But I'm sure you will like it if you like real progressive rock music with a dark atmosphere and if you love the Mellotron work, as I do, this album is for you. It's highly recommended especially for lovers of bands like King Crimson, Anglagard and Anekdoten.

Prog is my Ferrari. Jem Godfrey (Frost*)

Having paid tribute to the sound of the classic RPI scene on their debut album (In Hoc Signo), for their second release Ingranaggi della Valle shift to a substantially more modern sound, with Pink Floyd-via-Porcupine Tree-esque space rock mashed up with brooding, foreboding synth-oriented post rock.

It's an interesting stylistic shift which might see them faced with accusations of selling out, though to be honest if they genuinely wanted to sell out they wouldn't be playing prog in the first place. Admittedly, I'm not quite as sold on this as I was on their masterful evocation of RPI classics of the past, but it was enjoyable enough and if this was a necessary stylistic departure for them to grow their craft then maybe it will pay better dividends on later releases.

In hoc signo, Ingranaggi della Valle's first album, was one of my favorite albums of 2013. The traditional Italian Symphonic style allied with the violin and a sound that kept the roots of the RPI but with modern approach captivated me. I was looking forward to the band's second album!

And after 3 years we got Warm Spaced Blue, also released by the Italian label Black Widow. And what do we have here? Pretty much an alien for fans of the first record. After some changes in the line up Ingranaggi della Valle basically changed 100% its sound...

First of all the vocals now are in English (not that this is a problem, since 90% of the album is instrumental ...), gone are the Symphonic elements, gone are the various layers in the overall sound, gone are the Italian touch that made their first album unique, everything's gone. What we have on the new record is a bizarre mix of Post Rock, with Space Rock and Symphonic Rock touches, ' la Pink Floyd.

Honestly? I just can't understand the changes and they do not lead the band anywhere, sonically. What was unique to them is now what everyone else is doing. Also, why so drastically a change in the sound of the band after having battled so much to record the first record, establish an identity and have received so much praise for the first album? This baffles me completely! However, I believe there's still hope for the band and I will wait for the third album and see what they come up with.

But I must confess that after Warm Spaced Blue I will not wait so anxiously for it...

I probably have more fingers than I have Italian prog rock albums. But that doesn't mean I don't like what I have. One reason why I don't have more is simply that I fear that once I tap into RPI, I may well set myself up for yet even further spending of obscene amounts of money on buying albums. The day may yet come, however. Wallet, watch out!

Well, I may not have many albums and so my opinion of Ingranaggi della Valle's "In Hoc Signo" is by no means based on an extensive background of Italian prog. However, I am familiar with some of the most important classics as well as some more modern material, and I can honestly say that this album here really treads solidly in the line of the classic era of Italian prog. This is a very seventies-sounding album, complete with organ solos, rock guitar, violin, jazzy rhythms, and songs of unpredictable turns and time signature twists. Ingranaggi della Valle has taken all the best lessons in the RPI text books and masterfully created their own classic sound album for the year 2013.

One thing that can always win me over is some pretty hard rocking guitar sound in a non-hard rock context. The early seventies was good for that: organ and hard rock guitar doing a pas de deux to jazz influenced rhythms and drumming. This album so wonderfully revives that sound and style of writing and performing. Add violin as a key instrument and thoughts may go to Premiata Forneria Marconi classic works. There may be more lurking among those serpentine guitar solos and rolling organ keys. "Fuga da Amman" brings to mind some Allan Holdsworth and Bill Bruford in places; "Via Egnatia" draws me back to early seventies Pink Floyd; and the intro to "Jangala Mem" reminds me of classic Saga. "Masqat" really encapsulates that seventies jazz fusion instrumental prog jam style. But then again, much of the album does.

I can only say that to my ears, the music of this album is exquisitely written and performed, a very wonderful blend of classic seventies Italian prog and late seventies jazz fusion. It's definitely worth a four-star rating and I'd not hesitate to suggest a five-star rating to anyone who really adores Italian prog.

Warmed Space Blue, the second release by this Italian band Ingranaggi Della Valle had left me completely speechless, in a completely unexpected manner, I expected them to continue on the jazz rock styles of Area and Arti & Mestieri, but instead go for a much more complex brand of eclectic prog of the more extreme end that borders on RIO at times. Really it's a giant leap forward for the band. The violin and vocals have been reduced, what vocals there are are usually in English. The Mellotron makes a bigger presence than before. What you basically get here is challenging prog in the vein of King Crimson, Änglagård, and even RIO. The music frequently takes on a darker, more sinister vibe, which is always a plus for me. On In Hoc Sogno, the band sounds positively like they're playing it safe in comparison to this! While that one featured Mattias Olsson from Änglagård and David Jackson from Van der Graaf Generator and the recent Osanna as guests, Warmed Space Blue features Fabio Pignatelli, of Goblin guesting on the opening cut. This was completely unexpected for me! Isn't the reason for prog rock is to challenge listeners and even their expectations? Well Ingranaggi Della Valle did just that! This could very well be one of the finest prog releases I've heard of the 2010s! To think of the musical progress, think of if Yes started off with their debut in 1969 and then make their following release Close to the Edge, but to be fair, Yes had three years to get to that point, and so did Ingranaggi Della Valle, the major difference was Yes had three albums released between their debut and Close to the Endge, and Ingranaggi had no albums released between those three years, but it still allowed them time to progress to where they are now. I just love it when new prog bands show their potential on their debut, but then really make that major leap on their next release. That's what IDV does here. But if you like the more jazz rock leanings of In Hoc Signo, Warm Spaced Blue would me a more rough ride. For those wanting new prog that's quite complex and challenging, there's no reason not to own a copy, this is essential!

This young Roman band offers us his second album with guest musicians Mattias Olson (Anglagard) and Fabio Pignatelli (Goblin). We can hear influences of those two bands in the music that has an old Italian style but a modern Swedish influence including Anekdoten. From the ethereal opener, we are in a strange and dark territory with some violin and vintage mellotron. The drums patterns remind me of the classical song of Ravel "Bolero". The music is mostly instrumental with occasional English lyrics. The band enjoys building the melody slowly in a faster and louder tempo. In the second track, we can hear the piano and keyboards in a pure canterbury style. The third track instrumental starts again with a dark intro and has soundtrack atmosphere. The fourth track brings back the vocals with some jazzy excursions. "Ayida Wedo" is a little masterpiece of vintage sounds, smooth drums, delicate and beautiful keyboards tones with a King Crimson ending. The last song has an acoustic intro with that dark and intense atmosphere ending furiously in the Anglagard style. This album is another fine example of how the Italian scene can be very creative. It's like hearing the sound on the 70's in the modern age with the same songwriting quality.