COME UN VECCHIO INCENSIERE ALL'ALBA DI UN VILLAGGIO DESERTO

With his second album to date, Alan Sorrenti reached the most complex and brutal vocal experiment in all his career. The album's structure is similar to the previous Aria, a little bit extended being over 46 minutes of music and divided between the whole side's self titled epic (side two - 23 mns) and shorter and simpler songs.

For the recording sessions of the album he went to London and was helped by other famous guest musicians as VDGG's sax hero David Jackson, who played flute and by Curved Air's member Francis Monkman on synthesizer, piano and electric guitar. Differently from Aria, his voce appears more nervous and complicated passing through stronger dissonances and unusual noises and strange sounds.

The epic is an absurd journey - avantguard prog - into pure musical madness, I think. Irritating and fascinating at the very same time. Obscure lines based upon acoustic instruments (guitar and percussions, mainly) plus some interesting synthesizer's sound. Many italian prog lovers see in this opus a clear inspiration and model for Banco del Mutuo Soccorso's Canto Nomade per un Prigioniero Politico, but, hey people: do not expect something similar to that! Sorrenti is a peculiar prog artist who builded his prog credentials upon an innovative (for Italy, at least) singing that can hardly please the mainstream listener. His music cannot be everybody's cup of tea. Nevertheless is so strange, particular and inventive that cannot be forgotten by any italian prog lover.

Despite some very good gems, as the sweet "Serenesse", "Una Luce Si Accende" and "A Te che Dormi", this album appears somehow weaker than the debut one. Somehow unispired and pretentious, even if it rapresented his most ambitious project.

3.50 stars.