...GIUDIZIO AVRAI

This album came as a surprise to me in many ways. This band is one of my favorite in the RPI genre, but I didn't realize that this album existed until recently. Their first two albums are more along the lines of heavy prog and hard rock power trio with flute, with the thunderous bass of Stefano Urso commanding most of the attention. Then for their masterpiece, their third album Contaminazione, they added keyboardist Franco di Sabbatino. He immediately took a preeminent role in this amazing symphonic album. There are flashes of their first two albums, as well as bursts of flute from Pino Ballarini, but the keyboard and symphony take the lead. The band during this time was famous for their amazing liveshows, featuring quadrophonic sound and coordinated lights--just never seen in RPI bands during this time.

But disaster soon followed. Theft of their expensive equipment seemed to spell the end of the band. Vocalist/flautist Pino Ballarini soon departed, apparently replaced for a brief time by Michele Zarrillo from now defunct Semiramis. (What a show that would be!)

But about three years after that, the band was down to a quartet, with no vocalist. They performed this show in 1976 (some sources say 1975), which is completely different stylistically from their first two heavy albums and from their third symphonic album. This live show is keyboard-dominated as well, but this time the style is spacey atmosphere with a strong rhythm section and jazzy guitar outbursts. About 45 minutes of really fun improv. And despite it being a bootleg recording, the sound is pretty good. The band officially released the album in 1988, on limited run LP only. But you can find the entire album on YouTube. So have at it! Enjoy a slice of RPI history, and imagine what might have been. 3+ stars (Gnosis 10/15)

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