IS YOUR SPIRIT FREE?

Interesting project by this italian duo of Massimo Mazzeo and Andrea Romano plus singer Stephania Bejma. The music here is very hard to label: they sing in english and don´t sound italian at all. Still this is mostly acoustic stuff, quite laid back and pastoral, except for the few occasional burst of electric guitars like the Santana inlfuenced instrumental track Shiver. In fact, they sound more american than european.

The songs are good, but not exceptional. I found the vocals rather weak on parts, expecially the male voices (mazzeo is no singer, which is very strange for an italian outfit). The lyrics are naive, ok, but I could live with that. Maybe they would be better if they sang in their native language. I heard they were influenced by Camel, but I really didn´t find much of that band here. Maybe that´s why they labeled them as neo prog here on PA, but don´t expect anything in the vein of the english 80´s bands nor the more recent neo groups that came from Poland or Holland. But if you like simple acoustic melodies, with some folky and jazzy parts then you should check this out.

In the end I found Is Your Spirit Free: a nice album. Quite peaceful and pleasant to the ear. Not much progressive stuff here, though. 3 stars.