RITUALE ALIENO

Pane Astrale is a beautiful operatic piece, a fairly standard classical track rather than anything particularly zeuhl like, but lovely nonetheless. Calm piano throughout, opera vocals bridged by a cello solo. A nice appetiser for the album.

Saturno starts with a sudden gera change, straight into a 'typical' Zeuhl minor key bassline and rollicking drums. 90 seconds of this though before it breaks into a church organ solo believe it or not... A rapid journey through genres as another 90 seconds later a saxophone breaks in and the bass and drums return, leading to a jazz fusion style jam with a Zeuhl feel... might be what music would be like if Canterbury was on Kobaia? A soaring electric guitar jam adds to this particular passage too. This stops abruptly six minutes in with some Gregorian chanting before another Zeuhl style passage, with a few changes of time signature for good measure, ticking a few prog boxes! The soaring electric guitar returns as well, mixed in with some keys. Roughly on the half way mark it breaks into a dystopian march, very reminiscent of MDK, only with some electronic sounds - alien invasion in progress. Following that a fairly rocky sounding passage, and because of this the operatic style becomes a bit of a metal cliche - group of male vocalists plus a soprano. After a lot of this it builds to a crescendo, and then bizarrely despite all the changes its able to make, it's unable to find a way to end the track and just fades out!!

Il Viaggio di Elric makes use of a lot of percussion to begin with, under another great guitar riff but then suddenly breaks into a very avant-garde slow section with slightly 'out of tune' opera vocals and gongs before the original melody returns with another swirly guitar riff. Five minutes in, enter the cello, and the keys and vocals help to create an almost Tudor sounding section, a piece from a masked ball. The male harmony choir from this section continues as we revert back to a jazzy style which is reminiscent of early Magma albums, complete with head-bopping bass and strong drumming. Piano and more electric guitar take over from the vocals and the track becomes more like standard rock. Its switching genres a lot, but in a good way rather than just being a tick-box exercise for a long track 'medley'. You get the impression this might fade out like the previous track but it actually suddenly becomes another dystopian march for a couple of minutes, really heavy percussion and electronics. I didn't actually like the 'Tudor' middle section but otherwise this is a great track.

Ipernature del Tempo starts off as what I think some places would call "World Music" which is the lazy way of saying anything not sounding western. The percussion used is a Tabla, with the overriding theme therefore of the Indian subcontinent, although I think you'd be forgiven for hearing something of Sub-Saharan Africa in there too. After 90 seconds its classic jazz piano, but with a bass guitar and vocals that still keep you thinking of Zeuhl. We're then treated to another great guitar riff, although I'm not a fan of the keys under it, before a pause and another jazzy Zeuhl passage which builds from a great bass solo and classic vocals.

Antichi Occhi Ciechi starts with an industrial sounding blend of electronic noise followed by monotone chanting and then Fraile's soprano. This develops into early Magma on the 3 minute mark and switches back and forth between this and fairly classic jazz. Towards the end though it breaks into a bit of space rock, just for something different! The final track again, is quite like early magma.

All in all, a good album although I'd rate this one as a high 3 stars rather than a low 4 of their later two.

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