CRYSTALS

Paolo Tofani of Area was responsible for this unknown supergroup,including Giorgio Piazza of PFM, Giorgio Santandrea of Alphataurus,Carlo Degani on vocals,Nanni Civitenga of Samadhi and Raccomandata Ricevuto di Ritorno and Marcello Todaro of Banco del mutuo Soccorso.Tofani composed all tracks of the album,which was recorded in 1974 and headed for release on Cramps label.For unknown reasons the album saw the light 18 years later on Mellow Records and succeded another re-issue on Akarma in 2003 with a different cover.

Despite the presence of some giant names of the Italian prog rock scene,this is album has nothing to do with classic Italian prog sound.Firstly all tracks contain only English lyrics.Secondly CRYSTALS draw their influences from the US hard/blues scene,especially some instrumental parts with some double guitar attacks are very close to LED ZEPPELIN's sound and even a few mellow parts come close to WISHBONE ASH.Another name that comes to mind in terms of comparison are early RUSH (first three albums).Nice bass work by Todaro and a couple of good guitar passages along with the non-accented vocals of Degani are worth mentioning.However prog addicts will meet almost nothing of significant interest in here...

A good album overall,but with a very unoriginal sound.2.5 stars for a lost release,which could have been easily part of a classic rock site.