IL TRONO DEI RICORDI

This album should have been a full instrumental one. After the recording of the original music, a new member joined (Alberto Mugnaini). The band decided to add some lyrics to one of their songs "The King of Memories". The boss of the recording company was so impressed by the result that he asked the band to follow this direction and asked for more lyrics. And here we are for a great symphonic moment.

Of course, the intro for "The King of Memories" is fully ELP oriented. Gorgeous and pompous keys. I only had wished that instead of "In The Hot Seat", ELP would have produced such a great album as this one. Because we are facing a true symphonic gem. I am not sure that this album fully falls under the Italian prog genre (all lyrics are sung in English); but who cares. It is great music and vocals are rather convincing.

If you except the short "A Memorable Fancy", the lenght of the songs ranges between thirteen and almost twenty minutes. So, no simple music featured here. Great classical passages, strong ELP-ish keyboards (in each song), sweet symphonic elements, melodic moments and at times (like during "On The Rising Sun") : a superb guitar solo. These are the basics.

My preferred song of the album is "On The Rising Sun". The lenght will prevail it from being boring (thirteen minutes) and still allows to develop it sufficiently. Great (but very short) sax play and aerial keys are a pure marvel. This song really ranks as a great one. This is full symphony even if at times, some heavy keys can be noticed.

The fourth and closing number is probably the hardest and the weakiest one. Somewhat neo-prog and a bit out of mood.

My only negative remark would be that it is a shame that such a good band only produced one album. It should be forbidden...Four stars.