ATON'S

I think that is one reason why I have enjoyed this album, in that it is different from the norm and the listener is never quite sure what is going to happen next as it may be a peaceful acoustic guitar interlude or something much more powerful. Anton's are never going to be fashionable and the language barrier will turn off quite a few people which means that many people who would enjoy this album will not even try hearing it. It may not be essential but it is enjoyable.

Originally appeared in Feedback #70, Oct 02

The opening ''Introduzione Star'' gives hope for great album with a stunning church organ opening section with some powerful and lyrical Art Rock to follow with.The rest of the album though returns back to the romantic and classic Aton's sound with the light instrumental themes but also the sensational vocals of Ratto.Melodic and easy listening Progressive/Art Rock with emphasis on the beautiful voice of Ratto and the smooth guitar melodies.The tracks are rather commercial oriented, leaning heavily on the poetic lyrics, and the music is based on the decent guitar solos, the solid but accesible arrangements and the discreet keyboard and piano themes with the exception of some church organ of unique grandieur.Fortunately the material is memorable, pleasant and often deeply atmospheric, overcoming the lack of trully serious orchestrations, while the fantastic vocals won't leave any fan of Italian Prog indifferent.

After ''Capolinea'' Ratto seemed to totally abandon the Aton's music ship and released a couple more of personal works under his own name.The latest album of the band fits within the standars of melodic Progressive/Art Rock and , though far from extraordinary, it will please all fans of intense and lyrical Progressive Rock.

After reading a recent review of the new Anglagard album by one of our esteemed collaborators I got to thinking about the impact the Swedish band have had and how it compares with the baby footprint left by Aton's, one of the leading RPI groups of the recent past. It's my understanding that Scandinavian and Italian artists were at the epicentre of the prog revival of the nineties, but whereas Anglagard seem to have had the Midas touch in that they produced one of the seminal albums of the decade, an album that is perhaps emblematic for the prog revival itself, an album that on its own has attracted something approaching one thousand ratings for the band - and their new album has already garnered nearly two hundred ratings - the six albums by Aton's listed on ProgArchives currently have a paltry seventeen ratings between them. And that inequable distribution of ratings is in spite of one of their tracks, 'Buio', having featured regularly on MTV.

In spite of their fringe status on this site Aton's helped to pave the way for the restoration in prog rock that was ongoing during the nineties, with foundations that were laid years earlier; they had actually been on the go since 1977 so were intrinsic to the development of Italian prog, even if their role appears unimpressive and they weren't able to flex the same kind of muscle as Anglagard. As an axis that unites seventies and modern RPI, Aton's must surely be one of the site's best-kept secrets and I'm genuinely puzzled at the paucity of reviews for the band. Okay, they are one of the more mainstream examples of the RPI subgenre and 'Caccia Grossa' stands for a collision of RPI, Neo-Prog and synth-pop that's about as far from the monolithic and menacing 'Hybris' as you could get. And while the 13- minute 'Sinfonia No. 2...' showcases Aton's at their most ambitious and symphonic, there just seems to be a touch of the burlesque to this rather mediocre and long-titled instrumental; for me their main strength is their songwriting. From the standpoint of degrees or levels of prog rock content, if you were to do a comparative study between 'Hybris' and 'Caccia Grossa' Anglagard's dissonance, virtuosity and complexity would most likely hold sway. But for me it's like trying to compare a windswept hike across the icy Scandinavian mark with a romantic cruise around the warm Mediterranean coastline in a lateen-rigged felucca.

Speaking of which the first sounds heard on the album are of waves breaking on the shore at the beginning of 'Maggio di Sant'Elena', Aton's majestic vision of Napoleon Bonaparte as the Romantic hero. The song presents the melancholy that rises in the emperor's heart and he cuts a lonely figure looking out to sea, driven to an inglorious end he did not foresee and haunted by memories of drum rolls and daring cavalry charges of victorious campaigns. I don't know whether Mark Knopfler ever heard Aton's but his song about the little corporal on his mid-nineties 'Golden Heart' album recalls the campfire jig halfway through 'Maggio di Sant'Elena' although Knopfler's song presents the common soldier's point of view rather than Bonaparte's.

If Bonaparte's exile on St Helena was his lowest point, prog rock was arguably at a nadir in the late eighties although that would soon change. Despite my early interest in Italian prog rock - I bought PFM's 'Photos Of Ghosts' and 'The World Became The World' on their original release in the early-seventies - I wasn't aware at the time of the depth of the scene in Italy, just as I wasn't aware of the mushrooming of prog music during the nineties. That revival might not have been possible without a combination of CD reissues, technological advances such as the Internet and the socio-political upheaval of the period. Some of these events have resonance on this album, such as The Velvet Revolution of 1989 and the subsequent collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 which had a knock-on effect in Italy with its transition from the First to the Second Republic, from bribesville to clean hands. Additionally, the signing of the Maastricht treaty in the following year led to the European Union and from then everything, including prog rock, snowballed. Coincidence I daresay, but the Italian economy finally overtook that of Britain in the late eighties at the same time as the Italian prog scene was once again flourishing. Events like these seem to underpin the songs on this album and for me the titular tower of 'La Torre Tradita' provides a metaphor for the transformed and united Italy standing sentinel over the symbols of war, the arts and religion of the nation's past and future.

This engagement with Italian history seems to continue on the title-track (the album title translates roughly as 'Big Game Hunt') and this song depicts a forest scene with strummed charango reinforcing the pastoral feel. There's nothing in the music to transmit the plight of the forest inhabitants but when the lyrics come into the equation it's a different story. A shadow falls over the forest valley as a hunter and his dogs arrive to wage war on the birds and their little allies, like Il Duce and his Fascist militia during their March on Rome. The woods become a death-trap as the birds are torn feather from feather and a strange silence replaces the music of the forest. To me the song signifies the bravery of the Italian troops who were massacred when they refused to surrender Cephalonia to the Germans, or the burning alive of the villagers of Boves in 1943. (Contrast these incidents with the myth of Italian cowardice that resulted from allied propaganda during WWII, e.g. jokes about the number of reverse gears on Italian tanks).

After a lapse of twenty years since their debut, Anglagard's new album reinforces their leading position in the land of the prog giants. Meanwhile 'Caccia Grossa' remains criminally overlooked and I guess the final nail in the coffin for the album was that following its release the Contempo record company quickly folded (the album artwork of a warrior with downward-pointed spear symbolising universal destruction seems prophetic), with the result that finding a copy of the album is no halfpenny matter. If you see it on sale for a reasonable sum you should bite the seller's hand off. A recent discussion in the forum centred on a call for the introduction of a Melodic Prog category. If such a category did exist 'Caccia Grossa' would surely deserve to feature among its top albums because it's a true celebration of the wonderful gift of melody. Aton's may be lying in decay deep within the bowels of RPI obscurity but none of the shiny stuff of 'Caccia Grossa' has worn off. The band's name is taken from Aten, or Aton, the deified disc of the sun in Egyptian mythology, and the blazing light of the joy of music bursts forth from this rare treasure.

Aton's were on decline and ''Klein und Wagner'' was a good proof for this fact.The band sounds as close as it gets to typical Neo Progressive Rock with sensitive vocals and easy guitar tunes, accesible grooves and cliche song structures.Compared to the previous works there is just not enough space for any instrumental efforts and Ratto's voice dominates the whole album without some breeze of more adventurous passages.Apart from a couple of tracks with a nice atmosphere, ''Klein & Wagner'' suffers from forgettable tunes, plastic keyboard parts, an average production and the mediocre sound of electronic drums.The choruses are not particularly memorable and what saves this effort from a below average rating is the brilliant voice of Ratto, the decent guitar work and the few lovely tracks in the vein of ''Caccia grossa'' like the slightly complicated opening ''Klein'', the melodic instrumental ''Stop'' and the highly emotional ''E dio Senzate''.

Since Massimo Trasente left Aton's, the band had yet to make some impact.With works like ''Klein & Wagner'', Aton's deserved to be labeled as a band with potential, which never actually came out of the depths of obscurity.Only recommended to fans of Neo Prog or easy-going Italian Prog...2.5 stars.

On this album the major flaws of ''H'' are gone for good and Aton's perform an elaborate, sensitive and dramatically lyrical Progressive Rock with influences from both the Italian and Neo Progressive Rock scene.With Ratto's brilliant voice on the forefront, ''A.I. 2984'' is an album where the Italian emotion meets the fundamentals of the British Prog school and the result is more than satisfying.The guitar work of Ratto is melodic and also produces some nice groovy parts helped by a steady rhythm section.The keyboard work is mostly in the background but even so a light GENESIS and MARILLION influence is evident on the short synth solos.However it is the Italian romantic atmosphere which really dominates the album after Ratto's passionate vocal performance and the smooth delicate atmosphere reminiscent of bands like SITHONIA or HOPO, prevailed by the mediocre 80's production, but always with a strong sense for melody and emotional arrangements.District symphonic passages and a dose of grandiosity are present as well to add the album some more welcome intensity.

Excellent second step for the band, which produced an album of intricate melodies, both vocally and musically, and a must-have for fans of easy-listening prog adventures.However even listeners of more challenging albums should give this album a spin to figure out how a band with little equipment can produce such an emotional release.Overall, strongly recommended...3.5 stars.

When a band relies on such a high degree in the vocal arrangements, one thing is for sure: Either you get a great masterpiece like with ''Caccia grossa'' or you fall short compared to this like the new effort if the inspiration is gone.Additionally other flaws like the mediocre production or the bad-sounding keyboard/orchestration programming come to surface. Actually the first tracks contain some decent instrumental parts with good breaks and melodies with even ''Notte di valpurgia'' being all instrumental with a strong LE ORME influence and really challenging changing moods.The rest of the album is not quite as strong.Rather straightforward and similar-sounding songs with horrible cheap synth-programming and average melodies under an awful mix, depending heavily on the romantic vocal performance of Ratto.His voice remains a trademark and a highlight of the band, however the vocal arrangements do not help, being rather flat compared to what was going on in ''Caccia grossa''.''Rimasta solo'' is the exception here, being a great piece of the good Aton's face with Ratto's sensational vocals on the forefront and a grandiose symphonic middle section.

Not a great follow-up to the band's finest effort, propably due to the obvious lack of inpiration and the departure of Massimo Trasente.A mediocre mix of Neo Prog, Pop-Rock and light Symphonic Rock with only a few nice moments, this album is exclusively headed to fans of romantic and smooth Italian Prog...2.5 stars.

Not far from the sound of SITHONIA,the album has a definite romantic flavor and an emotional approach created by the melodic keyboards and the light keyboards.Ratto handles also the vocals and it's a big surprise that his voice is so sensitive,making every sung-lyric a dramatic and dreamy experience,helped by the inspiring melodic vocal lines.His guitar work is not complex at all,I'd rather the opposite:Easy-listening, smooth yet atmospheric guitar playing for anyone, who's ears are open for tasteful melodies.Keyboard play mainly a supporting role,but often they add a slightly symphonic flavor,just exactly when SITHONIA and even NUOVA ERA come to mind.Frallonardo and Trasente conclude a tight and careful rhythm section, just in the path Ratto's musicianship has ruled.Melody, harmony, sensitivity, deep emotions and dreamy atmospheres,all are included in this excellent album.

Drawing influences both from the Italian and English progressive rock scene, ATON'S created one of the most attractive releases of the New Italian Prog scene,which speaks straight to your heart.Absolutely essential!

'H' is a concept album about the story of a soldier and the death (played by a woman) during a war. If the theme is extreme interesting the music is no exception. In fact, proper because recorded live and with no good mix (in addition to other defects...) this album conquest me.

Good the vocal parts (a la Franco battiato) and good the music (a Prog version of Elettro POP, similar to Battiato, but with less Dance and Avant Garde writing style), based on the arrangements with a good melody (and not only in a not arranged melody). Good the guitar but the drums dominates the other instruments (and looks like a D-Drum... even cymbals sounds like an electronic cymbals... but this sound is due to recording process, I suppose...).

In other vision 'H' is a great piece of Prog, not typical of Neo Prog but 100% RPI, cause the style of writing (although too POP) and arrangements. In fact the baroque elements of RPI are presents in 'H' musical concept. So the music is extreme easy but difficult, with dymamism and feeling in first plan.

For me 'H' is an album to rediscover, RPI or not RPI aficionados!

Songs are generally pretty rocking but there are occasional acoustic passages played on Ovation 6 string. All of the musicians are very good. The vocals which are in Italian are pretty good and very optimistic sounding as is the music in general. (Of course I can't understand the vocals so I don't know what the songs are about, but the music sounds upbeat.)

The title track opens the disc at over 8 minutes in length. Theatrical vocals burst forth right off the bat in a Christian Decamps style but not quite so over-the-top, maybe a low-calorie Decamps sound would be the way to describe them. In fact it's funny this song sounds more like French prog to me than Italian. Finally around 6 minutes Pietro lets rip with a nice electric solo and he definitely can play some guitar. "Scacco Matto" is a laid back pleasant pop song with some nice bass playing and a short piano ending. "Principessa" plods along mid-tempo sounding like early 80s new wave. "Il Soldato e il Drago" starts with a repeating descending chord pattern that blossoms into an expressive acoustic section. This track sounds to me like it could have been influenced by Jester's Tear. Good song. "Figli Del Buio" starts with gentle finger-picking before the band joins in for a song that to me sounds like a track from 10,000 Maniac's "Wishing Chair" album. You heard it here first. Aton's sounds like 10,000 Maniacs with male Italian vocals instead of Natalie, which begs the question: Is Aton's folk rock? Or were Maniac's neo-prog? OK, neither one, but tell me this song doesn't sound like Maniacs circa 85. Things change drastically around 6 minutes to a funky bit and then a nice guitar solo. "Sulla Ferrovia" starts with heavy phased power chords leading into the clean electric picking quite typical here. "Vai" features one of the best vocals here, very emotional and filled with longing. The chords are sad ones but still the song leaves some hope in the bass parts and beautiful guitar solo. My favorite track. "Liberta" closes the album with a gorgeous example of acoustic talent throughout, with the sounds of ocean waves behind the guitar and vocal. Great ending. This album seem to build and get better in the 2nd half.

To be brutally frank, the sound quality of this CD version (Mellow 312) really does suck. But it's not a deal breaker for me. I have an imaginary line with regard to sound quality. Below that line I just can't enjoy an album. This one is about two clicks above that line so I would say it is listenable but don't expect a great production.

This is a good album although it is far from essential. I really enjoyed the upbeat sound and the personality of the band. If I had to briefly describe their sound here it would be "a marriage of 80s pop/rock and prog." The two bonus tracks have much better sound quality than the album itself which reminds you with every play how badly a remastering is in order here. Lyrics included (in Italian only.)