IL NAUFRAGIO DELLA SPERANZA

Italian progressive rock band Entity was formed in the early 90's by Gianluigi Longu (bass and guitar) and Mauro Mulas (keyboards). They had the normal issues with band members and released some promos during this period (including one with the same title as this album), but it took until 2013 for their debut album, 'Il Falso Centro', to be released. It then took another 11 years for the follow-up to come out, with the title coming from a painting by the German Romantic artist Caspar David Friedrich. Apparently, this is continuing with the lyrical themes started in the last album, although actually going all the way back to the band's inception, but given it is all in Italian I cannot comment.

We have the same line-up as for the debut, with Sergio Calafiura (vocals), Marcello Mulas (guitar), Gianluigi Longu (bass), Marco Panzino (drums) and Mauro Mulas (keyboards), but the result is somewhat mixed to say the least. It does not worry me that the lyrics are in Italian, I listen to a great deal of music where I cannot understand the words, but I do have issues with the overall quality of the performance as there are times when the vocals are spot on and others where they should just be scrubbed and removed altogether. That is a real shame as for the most part we have a band who are somehow attempting to link classic RPI with Neo and Crossover to create something which at times evokes the great Italian bands of the Seventies, at others it might be ELP or Steve Hackett with touches of Kansas, classic Galahad or even Big Big Train. One could certainly see them performing with the likes of Dim Gray and having a very pleased audience indeed. Yet there are moments within this where it just does not gel and given it has taken so long for the album to be released that is really not acceptable.

There is promise here, and some real sparks of delight, so let us hope the next one has overall better quality control.