BANCO DEL MUTUO SOCCORSO

Musically I might be inclined to view this album as a 3-star, but given the year (1972) and the fact that it's a debut, I'll slide the scale up a bit. This album is much more raw than later releases and certainly not overly produced, but I think this adds a different dimension to the band and really helps things to rock hard in places. I love the creative lineup, starting with the Nocenzis on dueling keyboards--they really do compliment each other quite nicely.

Unsurprisingly, the longer tracks (Metamorfosi and Il Giardino del Mago) generally contain most of the album highlights for me, though Traccia and RIP are anything but throwaway songs. Metamorphosi goes through many moods, but not in a way that seems too jarring or distracting. I love the dueling keyboard section toward the beginning with the Nocenzis battling in triplets and the band kicking in some staccato punches.

If I start to think I'm listening to a quasi-traditional rock band, Il Giardino quickly sets me straight, with an absolutely classic Italian prog flair. It's certainly not a great epic, with its stops and starts and general rawness, but always enjoy it nonetheless--probably mostly because of the interesting contrasts between the delicate clarinet bits and the harder rocking sections.

It's always fun to listen a great band's early attempts (assuming there is some good raw musical material to work with, of course) to determine their identity. Banco's would become more symphonic, peaking with Lo Sono in my opinion, but the roots of that album are certainly evident here, just with more punch and less subtlety.