L' ENIGMA DELLA VITA

Logos emerged from 13 years of hibernation (at least as far as releases went) to present the world with this new album. The band are clearly well-versed in their country's progressive rock tradition, with influences from a range of classic RPI bands like Banco, PFM and Le Orme creeping into their music, but far from being a nostalgia act they are able to craft a sound which stretches from the heady days of the 1970s all the way to the present and beyond, with some furiously foreboding moments here and there which sound far harder and heavier than anything the RPI bands of ages past unleashed on the world.

At the same time, these moments are somewhat sparse, and much of the album is filled out with the sort of material which symphonic prog, neo-prog, and retro-prog artists make by the bucketload these days. In addition, some aspects of the presentation let the rest down; in particular, Luca Zerman's vocals are tentative and unhelpful, and not even mixed especially well, in yet another example of a prog band not valuing vocals enough to get a vocalist with talent commensurate with the instrumental talent on display, but not quite having the guts to go fully instrumental.