CLOWNS

Here's one I run rather hot and cold on. Musically, this one's quite excellent, featuring intricate and well-thought out musical constructs and superb playing, particularly in the authoritative yet understated guitarwork and lush, classically-styled keyboard playing. They do wear their influences a bit on their sleeve, though, as displayed on "Clessidra", which plunders a chord progression from Gentle Giant's "Prologue" from THREE FRIENDS. Still, it does display good taste in influences, and the album gets better as it goes on.

Musically, anyway.

The big point against this album's favour, the thing that prevents me from enjoying it, is vocalist Ricky Belloni. He has an obnoxious, squealing, screeching hard-rock style of "singing" which is not only EXTREMELY annoying, but also highly inappropriate for the music. He absolutely ruins what could have been a borderline Italian prog classic. A grave pity.