LIVING STILTS

Before I talk about the album itself, I would like to clarify a certain term that came to mind after listening several times to the latest, second album by the Italian band Living Stilts entitled "A Child", which was released a month ago but has only just reached me now.

You have probably come across the term "concept album" more than once or twice while listening to various records, both progressive and semi-progressive. And this term can probably also be useful in the case of other types of music. It can be somehow adapted to albums on which "(...) there are songs that have a common theme or, arranged in a specific order, tell a story, and the cover and artwork of the album are related to the main theme of the album". I have allowed myself to quote one of the popular definitions here, not at all meaning that it is the only infallible one. It captures the spirit of what I mean. Many albums are not a random collection of songs, they are not musically glued together in a more or less successful way. Many of them, as the definition suggests, attempt to draw the listener into a certain presented world that is not limited to one piece, does not "fit" into one piece, but rather fluidly leads us through (sometimes complex) musical or narrative structures creating stories, histories, descriptions or what is often referred to as a suite. Somewhere in all this we should place the rock opera, which combines sounds with sung words to create moving musical performances that can almost be "seen" while listening. Theatricality comes to the fore here, to which all the rest is subordinated ? the music, the way of arrangement, the way of performance. The whole thing is to create something that I will allow myself to call a "listening spectacle". And that is exactly what the album "A Child" is. It is a listening spectacle, which by its power not only evokes some musical associations and references. It is a record, which with its sound forces the listener to create certain, almost theatrical, images and roles. This is a release that is a ready template for showing the story told on the theatre stage. The way the text and music are treated brings to mind the works of Bertolt Brecht, often performed by musical theatres all over the world. By musical theatres. On the album, the band creates such a musical, listening spectacle, which allows those who are willing to go on an incredible musical and verbal journey. All the arrangements are subordinated to the "spectacularity" of the presented music. Of course, if the term from the field of theatre art can be applied to music, as I allowed myself to do above.

Living Stilts is a musical project conceived by composer Luca Mavilie with the intention of creating evocative sounds and allowing the listener to go on musical and verbal journeys. Their songs are inspired by fantastic, more imaginative art, fiction, poetry and everything that allows them to achieve their intended goal - to tell a story in an almost theatrical way. The music is influenced by many things, coming from progressive rock, hard rock, romantic classical music, baroque, renaissance and what is called Rock Progressivo Italiano.

The action of the latest album takes place in the imaginary American village of Pinesville somewhere in the seventies. Here, a young boy witnesses the mayor molesting a girl with mental disorders. The girl is the daughter of a single mother living in poverty. People in the village believe that she was conceived by the devil and that is why she is different. Many adults sexually molest her, taking advantage of her uncontrollable behavior until she becomes pregnant with the mayor, and her mother tells her to have an abortion. Although she is an adult, the girl remains a child in her development. The boy returns from the forest wounded and does not talk about what happened. A sanctimonious priest, who sees sin everywhere, is secretly attracted to the girl, considering her pure and naive. At the same time, believing that she is a gift from the Lord, not a punishment from the devil. The girl becomes his obsession. On the rocks in the forest, people find strange drawings and messages referring to some of the secrets of the village. A farmer finds a goat with a cut throat and blames "evil worshippers". The priest begins accusing various people, one by one, until he incites a mass riot. He accuses the African American children living in the village of beating up a boy, which prompted the citizens to burn down one of their houses. Later, she accuses the newcomers who do not integrate with the rest of the village, because they are hippies accused of worshiping evil. The village doctor, who knows what really happened, openly attacks the mayor, accusing him of the shameful act of exploiting the girl. However, the mayor is defiant and defends himself, saying that everyone in the village is a sinner. The girl tells her story and says how her father abandoned her and her mother because she was different. When the boy tries to tell the other children what he saw in the forest, he is beaten by the mayor's son so that people will not believe him. The girl's mother accuses her of ruining her life; because of her differentness, her husband left her. She confesses to the priest, telling him the story and tells him that she ordered the village doctor to perform an abortion. When the priest discovers the truth about the girl he idealized, he becomes furious, convincing himself that she is really the daughter of the devil and that it was the evil in her that attracted and corrupted others. He knows that many villagers are involved in this story and carries out a massacre during a village festival by poisoning the participants with wine. Only the girl survives because she does not drink wine. Isn't this a ready-made scenario for a play?

Musically, this scenario is written out over ten tracks, which are characterized by the complete subordination of music to the content conveyed. As it was once said: music is the background for the story being told, which of course does not mean that it is bland. On the contrary, this way of treating it forced the band to arrange and perform it more carefully, which can be heard in every minute of each song.

"Trampled Flowers" - the first of the tracks is, in terms of content, the beginning of the spectacle we are listening to. In terms of music, thanks to the specific sound of the organ, it is a good example of the sounds of the sixties and, interestingly, I would not see any similarity to the progressive music of that period, but rather to the sound of The Doors with a slightly different-sounding vocal maintained in the higher registers. Although of course the synthesizers appearing about halfway through and the slightly hard-rock-sounding guitar at the end modernize the whole arrangement.

In the second track, "Reverend Warren", rock dominates, and the guitar with stronger chords emphasizes the narrative nature of the composition at the beginning, which, as time passes, transforms into a song typical of the sixties. We have a similar sound in the track "Dig In The Ground". Guitar and organ. "Black Fire", telling about accusations against African-American villagers, in order to strengthen the message, begins with the playing of an acoustic guitar that sounds very bluesy. Sounds reminiscent of the so-called delta blues. And only the keyboards heard somewhere in the background bring to mind progressive arrangements.

"Strangers" - a guitar-based, hippie-like beginning of a story about "outsiders", about those newcomers, not ours, who (as is often the case in such situations) are to blame for everything. We are still in the sixties, and the simple guitar solo played with single notes is reminiscent of bands from those years.

To describe the song "Punishment Of A Noteworthy Citizen" one could say that it is half The Alan Parsons Project stripped of its musical ornaments and half the melodic, albeit slightly hard rock, sounds of the sixties.

The brass band at the beginning and in the middle of the song "The Girl Of The Stolen Sun" makes the combination of the story about the girl's mother with the simple playing of the electric guitar, which "comes to life" and speeds up towards the end, give the whole thing an incredible, slightly fairy-tale and at the same time hard rock sound.

The short, three-minute track "Forget What You Saw" is an arrangement of organs that sound , of course like those from the sixties.

The penultimate track on the album - "A Drink Of Faith" is the closest to what you can hear on progressive bands' records today. Strong, guitar-synthesizer sound, slightly prog-metal vocals.

If you still think that there is a lack of evidence to support the thesis of the theatricality of this performance, please listen to the last track on this album ? "The Puppet Massacre". Delicate piano, sounds of rain and thunder, over two minutes of instrumental beginning, final guitar chords. Very progressive, gentle and melodic piece of music. Melodic and atmospheric summary of the whole.

Although the band Living Stilts was formed in 2014 and recorded their first album entitled "Shipwreck", it was not until 2025 that they released their next album. It took some time for Alberto Abate (guitar and vocals), Francesco Girone (bass), Luca Mavilia (keyboards) and Alfredo Cassotta (drums) to prepare the album "A Child". Is it a good album? It is not up to me to give an assessment here. This is a different album compared to this year's music productions. It is a "listening spectacle" and I will insist on this, perhaps not entirely accurate, description, which (in my opinion) captures the spirit of this album. It is a musical story in which all the arrangement and vocal means are subordinated to telling the story of a girl living somewhere in the imaginary village of Pinesville. If someone is looking for an album that goes towards creating a musical spectacle, this album is definitely worth recommending.

At the end of the day, "Shipwreck" comes across as a pleasant production in general. There's nothing truly wrong with it, but apart from the brilliant opening piece nothing truly great either. A pleasant album by a band whose talents have yet to reach their full potential. If you are a fan of concept albums in general, and have a deep fascination for artists exploring sounds, moods and themes that are heavily inspired by late 70's Pink Floyd, then chances are good that you'll find this CD enjoyable.