THE SANCTUARY

Alex Carpani is one of the lesser known keybordist from Italy in last years with quite long career untill now being parts of many projects, but somehowe he only mange to atrcat attention with his 2 solo albums released untill now, the third one is in making as his official site says and will be released somewhere in the next month. His second album from 2010 named The sanctuary is quite a solid album in symphonic prog realm. He gathered around him some well known and skilled musicians here coming from quite known bands like The Watch, from here is the guitarist Ettore Salati being member aswell in The Redzen and now in Soulengine. The music is very chalenging and well played with clear direction to the '70 greats in this filed and I mean Genesis or some ELP influences here and there. I like aswell that Carpani concentrated on writting and compositions mostly and not only on skills, each pieces has a vintage feel and is very intresting. The keyboards are very variate and bring some good moments. Alternating instrumental pieces with vocal ones, Carpani voice is not particulary strong but is very warm and fiting ok in this context. This is not at all a copy/paste music from the old school, he was only influenced by that period and aswell he infuses his own ideas, the result is more then ok, even great. Nice keyboard driven passages, where each musician shine, make from this album a real solid one in every aspect. Symphonic arrangements with nice inventive melodic lines, only a pleasure to listen, the opening track Burning Braziers for instance is a good example. So, all in all this is a memorable album that any serious fan of the genre must have or listen at least once, worth evrey second, not to mention that the package is very well presented. Digipak with a great very evocative cover art made by famous Paul Whitehead. 4 stars easy and recommended, is really sad that this album gone under the radar in that period, for sure desearves a far better recognition.