DARWIN!

My very first Italian prog album(very closely followed by Io sono nato libero). Listening to the samples on this site my I considered Banco's music really good. After receiving and listening a lot to two of their albums I am not disappointed at all! Banco del Mutuo Soccorso has an interesting line up with two keyboard players. Each musician is excellent, but Vittorio and Gianni Nocenzi deserve a special mentioning. Gianni plays mainly the piano(and his clarnet playing also adds a lot to the music) and Vittorio is the master of the organ and the synths, he plays some clavicembalo, too. Overwhelming keyboards on the whole album! The music is made even better by the phantastic voice of Francesco Di Giacomo, who is surely among the finest singers of the entire rock history. Vittorio Nocenzi is not only a masterful keyboard player, but he is a great songwriter as well. On Darwin! he delivers about 47 minutes of outstanding symphonic progressive rock in 7 tracks. Darwin! is a complex, yet very melodic, dynamic but no way agressive album. There are some weird keyboard sounds,Cento Acchi E Cento Occhi is a good example fpr that. This song also features some tribal-like chantings. Anyway, you can listen to it here as MP+ and I think it is a good representative of the album.There some jazzy elements, too, for instance in Danza dei grandi Rettili. Hard to pick a single favourite song, because the whole album is wonderful, currently I most prefer the 2 longer songs at the beggining and the mentoned Cento Acchi... and 750 000 Anni ..., but this already make most of the album. Overall, Darwin! is a brilliant release, fans of symphonic prog really should not miss it. Highly recommended!

Big thanks to Erik Neuteboom for this(and the following Banco )album!