LUXADE

Having only discovered La Maschera Di Cera recently I know very little about the band and bought this album on a whim after hearing good things about them here. It's turned out to be one of my better more recent surprise purchases.

The band are Italian and play Symphonic Prog in it's purest sense. It sounds very retro with its seventies Keyboard sounds like Mellotrons, Hammond Organs etc. A heavy use of Flute also adds weight to this giving them a Jethro Tull feel on one or two occasions too. It's interesting to note that there are no electric Guitars, just acoustic. Bass player, Fabio Zuffanti sometimes uses a Fuzz pedal on his Bass (which I'm not entirely convinced about) and there is also occasional use of Saxophone. The band all play well and Vocalist Alessandro Corvaglia sings passionately although as the vocals are in Italian I don't understand the lyrics. There's a very sympathetic production too also contributing to that authentic seventies sound with clean Drums which don't sound like the processed ones you get on many records of today.

The albums centrepiece is a twenty four minute track titled Enciclica 1168 which is broken into nine parts which as you might expect from such a long track has great dynamics and good instrumental sections and has a lovely soaring Keyboard dominated finale. However, superior to this is Nuova Luce, comparatively shorter at just over ten minutes and is stronger melodically with lots of light and shade amongst its more soaring moments.

The album closes with an excellent flute dominated instrumental called Schema (v.s.d.), a nice end to an excellent album that any lover of Keyboard dominated seventies Prog will want to check out.

As a footnote the cd is beautifully packaged in a Vinyl replica gatefold sleeve; ah the good old days!