ROCK PROGRESSIVO ITALIANO

Big Red Dragon (2013), released by Black Widow Records last year, is based on William Blake's paintings. Each song represent an image very beautifully represented in the booklet of the CD. The sound on Big Red Dragon (2013) still has a bit og the Gothic influence of her previous band, but this is just a small percent, in its majority the album is Symphonic and full of great vocals. Not just that, the album is filled with guests including Christian Decamps (Ange) Sonja Kristina (Curved Air) Elisa Montaldo (Il Tempio Delle Clessidre) Steve Sylvester (Death SS), Lino Vairetti and Irwin Vairetti (Osanna), Enrico Iglio (her old mate in Presence) and Roberto Tiranti (Mangala Vallis). This make the album has a certain epic feeling.

This is a great album, especially for people who like some Opera kinda of Symphonic prog.

Three Monks is formed by the bass of Mauricio 'Bozorius' Bozzi and the organs and pipe organs of Paolo 'Julius' Lazzeri. Now, that's exactly the difference in their sound, the use of pipe organs and a big Gothic approach in their music, even when they play classical parts a la ELP. The Legend Of The Holy Circle (2013) was released by Black Widow Records in a simple Digipack, but because the album is instrumental I don't think this is a bad thing as all the info we need are there.

This is a really interesting release full of 'church' music if you like, a feeling of really being somewhere on the past in some monasterium. A really must have if you're a fan of Antonius Rex and Emerson, Lake & Palmer.

The short opener "Intro" in some way sets the atmosphere with experimental sounds and words that remind us that Time is nothing but hope. It leads to "Sentieri di carta" (Paper paths), a ballad that starts with a strummed acoustic guitar pattern. The lyrics conjure up the ghost of a mysterious, proud knight without a mouth to breath. His words get lost under his steps, ancestral fears begin to rise while you think of flying free in the night. Dull eyes are burning but everyone has got his cross to carry along his way... "Words of lead, words of of flesh / Under the churches, under the soles...". The music is not bad but, to be honest, this track fails to strike a chord on me.

The following "Lo schiavo di Babilonia" (The slave of Babylon) is better. It begins by a delicate piano intro and features many changes in rhythm and mood. The lyrics draw powerful, poetical images of redemption and hope. Babylon here is a metaphor for a life of sin. What kind of sin? Maybe pride, adultery, blasphemy or perjury... But even a damned life can be redeemed by love! A soul that burns as paper, a lost path on the side of a huge golden tower, silent clocks inside a church... Images can speak more than a thousand words... "The balance is broken on the weight of the heart / Time is just a hope...".

"L'uomo dall'ombra lunga" (The man with a long shadow) is reflective and melancholic. It draws the imagine of a man lost in his thoughts, ready to challenge his fate at every crossroad, following his meaningless dreams while his life slides away and stretches out behind him like his shadow.

The following "Un passo ogni parola" (One step on every word) begins softly with a mysterious atmosphere, then the rhythm rises and every now and again reminds me of Premiata Forneria Marconi. The lyrics depict an imaginary dialogue between a man and a poet about pain and fear, shadows and lights, good and evil. It's getting dark and they're walking along a solitary road, carried away by their feelings... "Poet, do not cry / There's already someone who's crying for you... Step after step you'll see the sun again along with me...".

"Quelle volte" (Those times) is a simple, melodic track about hope and dreams. The lyrics invite you to never give up when you're feeling blue. When you're waiting in vain for a saviour, you have to open your heart and try to imagine a better world and follow your dreams... In my opinion this is the weakest track on the whole album.

"Il castello delle stagioni" (The castle of the seasons) is definitely better. It's a long, complex piece that begins with a nice acoustic guitar passage and the sound of a storm in the background. The lyrics tell about a young woman who lies in a castle where Time stands still and memories run free... "In a distant place lies a bride / Golden tears and dancing lights / Love thoughts of a thousand colours...". Just a beautiful, timeless dream!

"Nelle notti più lontane" (In the most distant nights) tells of another dream where you can see a white ship sailing across the ocean. It's a piano ballad that fades into the more complex final track "Autunno" (Autumn) forming a kind of beautiful suite... Very brightly did the moon shine on the night I answered the call, and I walked out over the waters to the White Ship on a bridge of moonbeams. The man who had beckoned now spoke a welcome to me in a soft language I seemed to know well, and the hours were filled with soft songs of the oarsmen as we glided away into a mysterious South, golden with the glow of that full, mellow moon... Well, I think that this quote from a short story by H.P. Lovecraft, The White Ship, in some way can help to describe the content of the last two pieces, a kind of fairy tale where you can find madness and fear, hope and dreams... "Who knows what's the light of the world / This purity that turns around us / Please, take me away with these Autumn leaves...".

On the whole this album is not flawless but features some really good tracks and it's worth listening to. In my opinion, this young band have a great potential and I'm looking forward to their next album.

An album about how humanity looses their bond with nature is a great concept, I really like finding albums such as alieNatura where the work that has been done is very serious, not only music wise but concept and lyric wise. The cover art is also pretty good.

Elisa Montaldo as a keyboardist, vocalist and founder of the band has been an interesting discovery to me, I do not know many progressive rock female leaders, I am not being sexist, its a fact when it comes to my collection and It made me search for more bands driven by a female musician.

Other reviewers already pointed that the job Francesco Ciapica (replacement for vocals) isn't the best but nonetheless is quite impressive, I think that if the band progresses into mixing Francesco and Elisa vocal sections with more parity the result will be more than satisfactory. I have listened to "Il Centro Sottile" and I enjoyed alieNatura a lot more and even after reading specialists and collaborators reviews I still think that alieNatura is better.

Guitars and drums sounds VERY 70's but what is great about this is that keyboards on the other hand sounds modern; mastering nowadays permits electronic sounds to blend a lot better with guitars than it used to be in the past so I am happy to be able to grasp a sound from the past "updated" to 2014!

Highly Recommended!

This one contains two sidelong pieces only for a total time of 43 minutes, the opening one was recorded in studio and the second one was taped live.Both are good examples of guitar-oriented Psychedelic/Prog Rock with Fossati's guitar in evidence.Not technically explicit, both long tracks are based on atmospheric soundscapes, intense singing and Fossati's stretched guitar solos with a pretty old-fashioned sound and many moments with a quite loose playing.Some vocal melodies in here have a bit of a poppier tendency similar to 60's stylings, but the majority goes straight into jamming guitar fists, low-tempo groovy lines and some more fiery textures with Fossati's impressive solos in a HENDRIX style.The presence of Lio Marchi is responsible for some of the tunes close to Classic Italian Prog, coloring the sound with beautiful symphonic images or just supporting in the background with his Hammond organ.''Madre di cose perdute'' is propably the best of the two pieces, pretty solid effort with Fossati's displaying a wide variety of moods with both attacking riff scratching and melodic solos and Marchi's work being exetremely balanced.The live-recorded ''Sette?'' is even more guitar-oriented, tending to improvised performances, with ovestretched soloing and a less balanced sound overall.Still some of Fossati's most complex executions appear in this track.

Garybaldi officially folded in 1973, giving rise to a new Fossati project in 1974, Bambibanda e Melodie, which had a more jazzy but still charming style.Garybaldi were brought again out of dust by Fossati in late 80's, releasing two more albums, ''Blokko 45'' and ''La ragione e il torto'', both having a limited interest for Prog fans.An archival release, the 2010 LP ''Note Perdute'', containing some previously unreleased material, seems like a nice document, and in 2011 comes the release of ''Live in Bloom'', an interesting live album.

''Astrolabio'' marks the second and last official album of Garybaldi from the 70's.The opening piece tops up any previous or future piece recorded by the band, while ''Sette?" is rather uneven, abstract and less convincing, still some of Fossati's best guitar lines are included in here.Recommended overall.

Several times I've tried to understand what I don't like in it, why I'm unable to get it.

After repeated listens I think I have found the reason. There are bands which have repeated almost the same song for ages: in the pop world I think to R.E.M or Dire Straits. I can enjoy one or two of their songs, but at the third I'm bored, it's always the same song.

For Ingranaggi Della Valle it's different: they don't repeat the same song, their compositions are very well arranged and orchestrated, I really like the vocalist, but what doesn't change it's the mood. "Cavalcata" and "L'Assedio Di Antiochia" are excellent songs, but I can rarely resist to listen to the whole album in one shot.

It's very likely my issue, not theirs. I'm sure that I'm failing to enter into this album, it's not the album failing to catch my interest.

Anyway, the band deserves attention and I'll be happy to hear their future outputs. This "In Hoc Signo" has some very good moments, a keyboardist whose skill is somewhere between Emerson and Wakeman, they have the vintage sounds that I usually like, they have violin, flute, ethnic instruments... well, it's possible that sooner or later I'll completely rewrite this review. This album has everything it needs to be called progressive, all the required ingredients...why it doesn't make for me it's still a mistery.

But it's good. I can not like it, but from an overall and detached point of view I must say that it's a good album and most of the prog, and in particular, RPI fans will love it.

The opening track is evidence for this enough, containing slow bits, fast bits, gentle interludes between heavy metal riffing madness, and strong vocal melodies all while portraying a solid song structure.

'Dopo L'Uragono' showcases the more classic rock/heavy metal aspect of the album, with some riffs that could have been coined by Black Sabbath. 'Croma,' however, utilizes keyboards to great effect to create a simple, but flowing, beautiful melody.

'Le Mente' is surely the highlight of the album. Opening with a laid back, rhythmically lead motif, it slowly develops and builds over the course of four minutes into what I could only describe as one of the best atmospheric build-ups I have ever heard. But it doesn't disappoint thereafter, cycling through memorable vocal melodies and creative riffs with gradual tempo changes and solid instrumental work sprinkled on top.

'Ombra Muta' is a fitting closer to a great album, encapsulating the general sounds and styles heard throughout the album.

Alphataurus is certainly one of the strongest debut albums in all of progressive rock, and unfortunately, like many of strongest albums in the genre, their output doesn't extend far beyond this. Regardless, this perfect addition to any RPI collection, and shouldn't fail to impress.

8/10

Being of course based on Bach, there is pure orchestral work visited throughout the album, particularly of the Baroque variety, but this never takes away from the prog moments, which are highlighted by keyboard riffs, heavy guitar work, and memorable vocal lines.

Made up by a collection of abnormally short songs, this shortened length doesn't lend too much variety between songs. Instead the albums strength relies on distinctiveness in the songs themselves. Themes are often cycled through quite rapidly leaving little room for repetition and development. This is perhaps my only complaint of the album, though a minor one at that.

Seekers of an album with a perfect balance between heavy Italian prog, and classical music need look no further. With few flaws aside, Contaminazione is a dynamic album that deserves a solid spot in the RPI oeuvre.

7/10

The thing that strikes me most about this debut by PREMIATA FORNERIA MARCONI which translates into 'Award-winning Marconi Bakery' (yeah, everything sounds better in Italian!) is that although they may have been influenced by modern progressive acts of the day such as Genesis and other symphonic acts, they are the group in all of prog that I have so far heard that seems to have incorporated the most obvious classical influences. At this stage they leaned less on rock as an influence and more on Chopin inspired piano runs, Paganini inspired violins and classical Spanish guitar to make some beautifully constructed music that clearly emphasized melody above all else. Despite being more influenced by the classical world, there are also many times when jazz, hard rock and beautiful Tull-like flute enter the picture making this something truly unique.

For me the melodic nature of this music is just so addictive that it makes me think of the perfect amalgamation of two time periods of music, namely the classical periods of yesteryear which actually encompasses several centuries and the newer more modern-day era of the 70s when this was created. This is a beautifully orchestrated and crafted masterpiece that will surely be as well-known centuries from now like the influences that inspired it. For me personally, it just gets better after every listen.

The result is an album filled with instrumental progressive rock of the darker kind, music that exist within an overall gloom-oriented context. Not depressive nor oppressive as such however, and generally shying away from the brooding atmospheres and similar moods that reflects back to a negative emotional state of mind. Instead I'd opt to use words like ominous and haunting for the general ambiance of this production, Gothic is also a word that can be used as a reference I guess - as long as we think about the cultural tradition that brought us Dracula and The Hound of the Baskervilles rather than the more contemporary understanding of the word that implies either a metal band with a female vocalist or people dressing up and partying at more or less shady nightclubs.

The band alternate between a small handful of different dominant main arrangements throughout these six compositions. Frail, atmospheric and fairly mournful piano and viola driven sequences is one of those, a not uncommon feature that is explored in full in a stunningly beautiful manner on Presenze Dal Passato. Other themes revolve around a darker and more dramatic sound, where guitars, keyboards and Mellotron effects combine in majestic, haunting atmospheres, presumably many of them inspired by vintage Italian horror movies of some kind or other. These themes may be fairly dramatic in nature as well, and if they aren't they have intense, more dramatic and theatrical sequences building up to them or following afterwards. Constellations combining keyboards, flute and viola in haunting, almost sorrowful escapades of a more or less gentle nature is another common feature throughout, with or without guitars in the supporting role, as well as plenty of variations of the constructions described oh so briefly here of course.

While this may sound like an album that does contain quite a lot of doom and gloom, this isn't a production totally focused on dark atmospheres however. As with many other Italian bands looking back in time for inspiration that include a flutist, occasional nods in the direction of Jethro Tull is a feature also in this case. Harder edged more often than not, and most times with a generally darker touch than Ian Anderson's somewhat merrier men as well, but still with a combination of flute and guitar riffs that does remind of Jethro Tull, which in this context results in a more joyful and uplifting atmosphere introduced into this otherwise endarkened landscape.

Instrumental progressive rock with a distinct, dark atmosphere and moods dominated by ominous tendencies is what we're served on this album, with plenty of theatrical flair of a subtle as well as dramatic nature, flavored by melancholic inserts and occasional details of a more uplifting nature. The band's stated influences by movies and movie soundtracks from yesteryear shines through as an obvious presence throughout too, and as such this is a band that most likely will be compared with other Italian bands of old inspired by or responsible for some of the aforementioned soundtracks. A company that should suit this band very well I presume, and fans of music of that kind will have another band at hand they should lend an ear to.