EVIL ROSE

Entering the millenium Presence were someone put on hold, as Sophya Baccini focused on her personal career.The 2002 ''The Sleeper Awakes + Live'' album gives a taste of the band's live activity, but the next year Baccini made her first composing attempt, writing a track for the ''Kalevala'' compilation of Musea Records.Over the next years she participated in various works as guest singer, like on Greenwall's ''From the treasure box'' or Malaavia's ''Vibrazioni liquide''.By the time she was writing material for her debut Presence returned as well after 8 years with new drummer Valerio Silenzi to release their fifth studio album, also the fifth one for the Black Widow label, entitled ''Evil rose''.

What had really hurt Presence over the years was actually their lack of sound development.Listening to ''Evil rose'', you get the idea it was pretty much written around the same time with ''Makumba''.The style is stable on a bombastic and operatic Symphonic/Heavy Prog with a very dark atmosphere and changing images between hard guitar runs and Classical-drenched organ themes, full of sudden breaks and orchestral flourishes.There is plenty of room for Baccini to come up with some extreme vocal exercises: operatic, distorted and more melodic vocal lines.But the whole feeling you finally get is that you still listen to a previous work by the band.The different variations seem not very tightly connected, the mass of shifting moods will eventually confuse the listener, although Presence is a skillful group to say the least.Fiery guitar solos, spacey keyboard lines, grandiose orchestral movements and punchy riffing are their basic elements, the ones that made the band well-known over the year along with the passionate rhythmic parts.Additionally this work is way too long, clocking at 70 minutes of similar-sounding music, that becomes annoying in the way.The 18-min. long title track is the best proof of Presence's ability to compose uneven still decent tracks.A very long introduction and some dissonant parts are pretty flat and uninteresting, but the guitar solos, the organ washes and the nice, melodic ending theme are quite nice.

The following year Baccini released her first album ''Aradia'' and Presence's activity has been ice cold for some years now, I guess the future of the band is rather questionable.

If ''Evil rose'' marks your first attempt to meet Presence, it will be propably a pretty good listening experience.But the lack of progress of the band over the timeline is not an advantage.Too long and sterile at moments, this album heads to fans of the band and die-hard Heavy Prog lovers...2.5 stars.