DARWIN!

"Darwin!" may well be the pinnacle of Italian prog - at least, it's the pinnacle of Banco's career, with serious competition coming only from "Io Sono Nato Libero" (which it beats in overall consistency) . To get straight to the point, two tracks on this album are among the band's finest achievements: "L'Evoluzione" and "Cento Mani Cento Occi". The former is as great an opener as one could ever hope for - from the haunting keyboards and tasteful guitar licks in the intro and the startling main theme, to the energetic ragtime-ish section, it's pure prog brilliance. Yet "Cento Mani." manages to achieve the same level of excellence with freaky synths, magnificent classical piano and a very effective hard rock outro. The rather pretentious ape grunts at the very end put me off a bit, but the amount of excellent music BMS manages to fit into the space of 5 minutes is staggering, since most bands have trouble creating that much quality material for an entire album.

The rest "Darwin!", though slightly weaker in comparison to the two aforementioned standouts, is still masterful, as each track contributes considerably to the overall impression. The mostly instrumental "La Conquista" wouldn't sound out of place in a "James Bond"-type film (that's the association it brings about for me anyway), although it's strongest point is the ending vocal section, which features interesting harmonic progressions. Also worth mention is "750,000 Anni.", a lovely piano ballad which manages to be quite moving, although I'm not quite sure how it fits into a concept about monkeys and evolution. These are just minor complaints, however, and on the whole "Darwin!" remains a highly rewarding experience.