POA

BLOCCO MENTALE ( Mental Block) was yet another one of many progressive rock bands in the Italian scene that swept the nation in the early 1970s. Like so many others, they formed, recorded a single album, disbanded and moved on to other endeavors. This band emerged from Viterbo, a city located just north of Rome. The band began in 1972 when members of the band Oleum found the addition of singer and bassist Also Angeletti who have been around since the 60s in his own band called Aldo e i Falisci. Together they crafted this one album POA which is a Greek word that means "grass." The title appears in Greek letters on the attention- getting album cover and the subject matter was rather unique in the world of progressive rock in that it dealt entirely with ecological issues, pollution and nature as well as flora and fauna.

The band was a quintet with Aldo Angeletti (who wrote the music) on vocals and bass, Michele Arena (drums and vocals), Gigi "Roso" Bianchi (guitar and vocals), Filippo Lazzari (keyboards, harmonica, vocals), and Dino Finocchi on (vocals, sax, flute). The band made use of the fact that all the members were vocalists and the music on POA has some excellent harmonic multi-vocal parts similar to bands like New Trolls. POA is characterized by lush melodic developments with the typical symphonic prog leanings of many Italian prog bands of the day with PFM inspired compositional constructs and a knack for more saxophone fueled jazzy outbursts than was typical of such bands. Mellotrons are aplenty as are great organ and flute interplay with a strong percussive backdrop and a heavy guitar presence making POA a true rocker unlike some of the contemporaries that kept things more bucolic and pastoral.

While veering into catchier than usual pop oriented grooves, BLOCCO MENTALE still had the chops to pull out the big boy prog punches with interesting dynamic shifts, tempo changes, time signature workouts and even contains some blues and a harmonica solo on "Io E Me," a combo effect that is practically absent from most prog bands due to the fact that the progressive rock movement emerged as a reaction of replacing the blues oriented roots with more classical and jazz elements. Having close proximity to Rome, the band also implement a large dose of Mediterranean traditional folk melodies which give POA an instantly addictive charm that is backed up by all the interesting progressive elements and stellar vocal gymnastics that are amplified by the entire band's participation.

Due to the glut of excellent Italian prog in the year 1973, BLOCCO MENTALE had more than a mental block and received little attention which ultimately led to their disbanding in 1975 when members were called for military duties however they would reform in the late 70s under the moniker Limousine which took a more commercial oriented route and even won them some music contests that would propel some singles to be recorded. POA is one of many amazing testaments to the high quality of Italian prog in the early 70s. While not as brilliant as the most revered bands of the era, BLOCCO MENTALE nevertheless delivered an excellent conceptually themed album with strong catchy hooks and beautiful classically inspired progressive workouts and makes an excellent album to explore once the usual suspects of PFM, Banco, Le Orme, Museo Rosenbach and the other better known bands have been thoroughly integrated into your musical world.