FLEA ON THE HONEY

This is the first album by FLEA ON THE HONEY, a quartet from Sicily but based in Rome. After this release, they shortened their name to FLEA and released the much better "Topi o Uomini" in 1972. Then they broke up for a while after some personnel changes, but the original quartet reformed in 1975 and produced a really good Jazz Rock album under the name ETNA.

This album is very far from the jazz rock style of 1975. Here there is proto-prog hard rock, with rocking guitars, interesting riffs, even some flute a la Tull. The songs are nothing special, but are not bad. In fact several are quite good--apart, that is, from the singing. They chose to sing in English, with lyrics which approach unbearable. Had they sung in their native Italian, or even kept the album largely instrumental, that would have been a great improvement. But in terms of its contemporaries, it is similar to ROVESCIO DELLA MEDAGLIA'S "La Bibbia"-- again, apart from the silly English lyrics and accent. (The band even sports English names on this one!) There are definitely signs that point to their next wonderful, more overtly progressive album, but in these short songs the approach is hard rock with prog flavoring.

The Sony/BMG mini lp is typical, with nice gatefold but little documentation (unlike the excellent booklets of the BTF mini lps)--and it is now out of print, as are all the Sony mini lps. So if you're interested, particularly as a collector of RPI, act quickly! Two stars, but I wish they were stelle . . .

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