BANCO DEL MUTUO SOCCORSO

Mr. Ian Gillan is an excellent musician. As a singer and front man, he is one of the best; second IMHO only to Mr. Robert Plant. When you hear songs like "Fools" (Fireball), "Place In Line" (Who Do We Think Think We Are), or "Mitzi Dupree" (House Of Blue Light), you see he is able to elevate songs quality; an average one turns into excellent. Few more singers are able to do this; ones like David Coverdale, R.J. Dio and Bruce Dickinson among them.

In the realm of hard rock, a front man is essencial; this is a kind of the style demanding it. But in the progressive rock, it seems that technique rules. You can see introspective guys singing in excellent ways, no screaming, no sexual energy being set at audience disposal. So, we speak less about front man here (does not matter if Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin are in this site; they are prog related), we see less bands where the singer is crucial. Spock´s Beard, Marillion, Genesis, a lot more changed front man and in one way or another, quality was still present. Ok, Ian Anderson is a fantastic front man, but I guess his voice is not above average.

Now that we reached this point, what I woud like to say is that in progressive rock I don´t find exceptional singers as much as in hard rock. One example here is, of course, Jon Anderson, of course, but I don´t know if he is human or an Angel.

Then I found Banco Del Mutuo Soccorso. Everything I want from a front man I found in Francesco Di Giacomo; and I mean that skill of "elevating" song´s quality. He has an operatic way of singing, and although I cannot appreciate opera, the fusion he performed mixing this style with progressive rock was very well performed. The band, of course, has others qualities. The doubled keyboard players (the brothers Nocenzi); and the crucial capacity of writing excellent melodies turns them into one of the "sacred three" most known Italian progressive bands (Le Orme and Premiata Forneria Marconi being the others two).

I won´t talk about details in this album, other reviewers performed very well this task. I only would like to call attention to their singer, the fantastic Francesco di Giacomo, who unfortunately passed away few years ago in an accident, I suppose. He is one of the core reasons for this album (and the others two next), deserving a five star rating.

Share this BANCO DEL MUTUO SOCCORSO review

Social review comments () BETA

---

---

Review related links

• Send comments to Antonio Giacomin
• Report this review (#2595704)
• Buy BANCO DEL MUTUO SOCCORSO music online with PA partners
• Show all BANCO DEL MUTUO SOCCORSO MP3/Stream
• Go to BANCO DEL MUTUO SOCCORSO page for videos, full discography with ratings, reviews and much more
• Go to Banco Del Mutuo Soccorso page for more details, where to buy and ratings/reviews
• Search the Forum for BANCO DEL MUTUO SOCCORSO related discussions