GLISPIRITI ICORPI ELEMENTI

...4 stars...

This album is damn good, I assure you...Additionally you can download VIEUX CARRE's debut from their site for free...What do we have here then?...So,VIEUX CARRE are surely influenced by the italian progressive rock movement of the 70's,but they also seem to admire the UK symphonic prog scene (GENESIS and GENESIS like bands)...Add some few jazz elements here and there and you'll get the picture...All the tracks of the album are of high quality,generally you'find carefully smooth symphonic arrangements but I seem to like more the tracks where the singer sings in his native language than the english ones cause' the later ones have a slightly neo-prog feel similar to MAGRATHEA...that's not necessarilly bad but the italian ones have the 70's italian feeling which I really love...The only negative thing I'd say is the production of the album,a big problem for all the unknown underground bands,since all the songs seem to have been recorded live and not in the studio...

Big big surprise,VIEUX CARRE will fill your nights and days with some excellent both complex and melodic symphonic/art rock so hurry and download their first release from their website for free,you won't regret it...

Vieux Carré is an Italian prog band from Spoleto (Umbria) formed by five skilled musicians with a jazz background: Alessandro Bartolucci (piano, minimoog, keyboards), Federico Barbieri (drums), Filippo Zelli (guitars), Marco Rambaldi (vocals) and Nicola Palladino (bass). The band began life in 2003 under the name Chiaroscuro and a first demo featuring four original tracks and two Genesis covers ('Firth Of Fifth' and 'Musical Box') was released. In 2005 the name of the band was changed into Vieux Carr' and a first self- produced full length album was released, 'Glispiriti, icorpi elementi' (although the title has an ambiguous spelling it could be translated as 'the spirits, the bodies and the minds'). Well, the overall sound has been influenced by progressive bands such as Genesis, Banco del Mutuo Soccorso and PFM, but the musicians managed to add their own touch of originality writing lyrics and music inspired by literature, cinema and history.

The dreamy opener 'Palingenesi' (Palingenesis) is inspired by an epic novel by Stefano D'Arrigo, Horcynus Orca, that tells the adventures of a mariner of the Italian Navy who tries to go back home in Sicily after Badoglio Proclamation on September 8, 1943.

'Greed' is an acoustic ballad and is sung in English. It was inspired by Greed, a 1924 American dramatic silent film directed by Erich von Stroheim and taken from McTeague, a novel by the American writer Frank Norris that tells the story of a couple's courtship and marriage, and their subsequent descent into poverty, violence and finally murder as the result of jealousy and avarice... 'I'm dreaming Trina freaking out / In that bed of gold with her devilish ruffled hair...'.

'Palinodia' (Palinode) is an excellent track with a good piano work and classical influences. A palinode is an ode in which the writer retracts a view or sentiment expressed in earlier poems... 'I'm prisoner of four bleak walls / Dusk and silence conspires / The imagine of your smiling face discolours in the complaisance of my memories...'.

'World Of Chance' is sung in English and could recall some solo works by Peter Gabriel while the lyrics depict a nightmarish atmosphere... 'Sound of raging waters down below / Something tight keeps biting at my neck / I'm hanging off the edge of a wooden bridge / My feet are trembling on a shaky plank / Dozens of rifles pointing at my head...'.

'KV62' recalls some recent works by Franco Battiato and features a mystic, oriental flavour. KV 62 is the name of the tomb of Tutankhamun in the Valley of the Kings and the lyrics tell of its discovery... 'The night is still warm when the prodigy happens / The first step emerges from the sand...'.

'Concrete Rarefaction Of Freedom' could recall Genesis and Van der Graaf Generator. It's sung in English and the lyrics are inspired by science-fiction while the following 'Louisiana Story' leads us in a Louisiana's bayou, on the tracks of an attractive, mysterious creole girl who makes you fancy a new beginning...

'Mellonta Tauta' is soft and melancholic. The lyrics describe in a very poetical way the feelings of a soldier sheltered in his trench. The enemies seem an army of shadows hiding in the night, an obsessive mirage that drives you crazy... The long, complex 'Riconciliazione' (Reconciliation) concludes this interesting album... 'Now the dream born from your hug / Sets cohesions free as if they were butterflies...'.