SENZA ORARIO, SENZA BANDIERA

"Senza orario, senza bandiera" is a concept album that New Trolls released with the collaboration of Fabrizio De Andrè, Riccardo Mannerini and Giampiero Reverberi: the singer songwriter De Andrè and the poet Mannerini wrote the lyrics while Reverberi (later producer of Le Orme's "Collage", "Uomo di pezza", "Felona e Sorona" and "Contrappunti") arranged the music. Nevertheless this is not a progressive album and the music is more close to Procol Harum or early Bee Gees than to "Concerto Grosso" or "Ut". You can find here some remarkable harmony vocals (a kind of New Troll's trademark) and some interesting guitar parts but not particularly complex compositions.

The thread that bounds together the different songs is the idea of a poet that goes along the streets of the world surveying places and people looking for feelings and emotions. The poet describes the places and the characters he's seen in the tracks of the album. The opener "Ho veduto" introduces the "subject" of this peculiar concept with vocals floating upon a simple acoustic rhythm guitar pattern. "I've seen sun rise from Thule's ices / I've seen the golden tints of the mosques / The big waves of Gascony, the white sharks / The hovels, the houses of the rich people and I've cried."

Then follows a gallery of characters. A man whishing to buy a street full of lights, colours and playing children in New York's city centre ("Vorrei comprare una strada", with amazing harmony vocals). A man praying the Lord longing for a bicycle ("Signore, io sono Irish" Lord, my name is Irish). A woman loosing youth and beauty waiting in vain for love ("Susy Forrester"). A gambler loosing his money ("Al bar dell'angolo"). A fisherman's son with holes in his shoes sitting in a corner while in the sky above starships are exploring the universe ("Duemila"). Two marines talking about the war in the Philippines ("Ti ricordi Joe?" - Do you remember Joe?). A priest wishing to have just a little part of the money wasted in a long war to help poor people ("Padre O'Brien"). A romantic man too shy to say I love you ("Tom Flaherty").

The final track "Andrò ancora" is a reprise of "Ho veduto". "I'll keep on going along the streets of the world with sincere eyes / I'll look everywhere for the pain and the happiness of men / I'll count the bitter tears of suffering people, the smiles of the people waiting with begging arms / I'll keep on going without timetable, without flag / I'll lean towards ill people and fountains, towards children's faces / I'll walk among rubbish and money without stopping / I'll keep on going and when I'm back I'll be older and better."

In the whole "Senza orario, senza bandiera" is a good album that contains some seeds of the future masterpieces of the band, though it's perhaps too short (just less than 30 minutes). Anyway, in my opinion it's not an essential one for a progressive rock collection.

In this album, there's full of greatness of early New Trolls.

Listening to the first track Ho veduto, with the gloomy and lazy voice, I couldn't stop feeling that it might be an avantgarde Italian pop album. But, little by little, their potential goes and rises up. Featuring a bit cheap chorus (sorry!), the old NT flavour opens and enlarges. The A-side (aka the first half) of the album has no or little atmosphere with our imagination of NT on the progressive period. The important point of this work is, I consider, the 8th track Padre o'Brien because the song does have the flavour and wave of progressive NT. The incomplete story goes calmly to the last Andrò ancora.

We maybe feel to get some of future brightness from early NT.

With much and great hope, I can give appreciation to this.

Debut album from this legendary Italian band. Released ages ago, before prog was prog? Some sort of a dinosaur album.

Most songs are under the three minutes mark and needless to say, there is hardly any musical development. Only a couple of fine melodies with crafted vocals.

One has to be indulgent with this album but still, "Procol Harum" released one of their best album the same year ("Shine on Brightly"). We are far from such a feeling while listening to "Senza Orario, Senza Bandiera".

One of the good songs is the passionate "Signore, Io Sono Irish". Some good old psyche feel sustaining a melancholic vocal part. Even if this song doesn't sound very fresh, one has to remember that it was released more than forty years ago.

The late pop sixties impression is al around this release. Some weak trumpets and rather dull orchestrations are spread out here: "Al Bar Dell' Angolo" and "Duemila" just get this appreciation confirmed.

This album is only to be considered for what it stands for. A discreet debut (remember the first "Genesis" blunder) for better things to come. Two stars.

This New Troll album is very important for the rock music scene in Italy, an album that interrupts and closing of the "Beat" period and opens and begins a new period of the "Psychedelic" in Italy, laying the foundations of that genre that was called "Progressive".

1968 (Senza Orario e Senza Bandiera) a proto-Prog album, and the first concept album that came out in Italy and probably the it's the third concept album that came out in Europe after the Beatles (Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band) and Moody Blues (Days of Future Passed) both released in the previous year in 1967 and again Moody Blues (In Search of Lost Chord) 1968 and followed by The Who (Tommy) in 1969...

The album (Senza Orario e Senza Bandiera) is very elaborate in the arrangements and with the orchestra and all songs develop a single theme; the vision of the world in the eyes of a poet; lyrics are by "Richard Mannerini" and then pass through the hands of "Fabrizio De Andre' " Genoese folkloriaon singer-songwriter who, like a mosaic, the precise words of De Andre' assembles them by fitting them in the metric.

The music is all by "Nico Di Palo and Vittorio De Scalzi", except "Signore, io sono Irish" written by "Gian Piero Reverberi" Genoese pianist, composer, arranger, conductor, who works with the New Trolls on the arrangements and short instrumental orchestral interludes that connect the songs and is also the producer of the album with De Andre'.

But what is reflected and noted in this first New Trolls album is the formula of the arrangements and the new musical style proposed by the band in psychedelic territories, probably the first band to offer this kind of music in Italy in 1968.

The influence of this album is not only that of the "Beatles" of (Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band) where many English bands have been inspired for find something new and also with the following album (Magical Mystery Tour) always in 1967, but there is also the influence of the "Procol Harum"Moody Blues"Vanilla Fudge" and of the "rhythm and blues" and the Freakbeat, but there's a strong difference in their 'mediterranean flavor', the one that has made many Italian Prog productions unique.

(Senza Orario e Senza Bandiera) translated in English (Without Timetable and Without Flag) conscious or not is an album that open and start the new trendy music at the time and the New Trolls undoubtedly were the band that opened the streets of the Italian Progressive rock, followed and together with the band "The Trip" with their album of 1970.

Between 1969 and 1970, New Troll published several well done singles in the genre Psychedelic-Progressive with Italian vibe and with fuzz sounds, the singles are collected an album released in 1970, with the title of "New Trolls 1970 "and it's the first anthology of the New Trolls, since it contains previously unpublished tracks on albums, is unanimously considered their second studio album, it is a collection of singles from the period 1967-1970.

New trolls was a band that said something new in the Progressive music and starting with (Senza Orario e Senza Bandiera) of 1968, that is an album to listen several times to discover the various moments.

Three and a half stars for this album and another half star for its importance in this kind of music.

So, four stars. ****

The debut from the influential Italian prog band New Trolls released way back in 1968, Senzo Orario, Senza Bandiera (kind of hard to translate-"without a schedule, without a flag" is vaguely close) stands as perhaps the first Italian pop release in what became known later as RPI. A collaboration between national folk icon Fabrizio De Andre (unknown in America but thought of by generations as the Bob Dylan of Italy) and Gianperi Reverberi listed prominently in the inner gatefold, this album is a very sophisticated rock opera best understood if you are fluent in Italian. However, if you are not, there is still plenty to enjoy here.

All songs flow from one to the next as we journey through the eyes of the poet narrator (De Andre) to create a single seamless work as he crosses the world with eyes and ears open to everyone he encounters-mostly the poor and downtrodden, but each with their own story. Opener Ho Veduto (I saw) is one of the stronger songs-bolstered by solid horns-and is a vague take on horn driven US rock of the early era like Electric Flag and Chicago. Third song Signore Io Sono Irish (still in their live setlist from time to time to this day) is a sad lament for a man who lacks his own bicycle. Moody Blues vibes flow from the end of Signore Io Sono Irish into Suzy Forrester, a song that would have sat comfortably on any early album by the Arthur Lee led Love. Al Bar Dell'Angolo has a cool distinctive horn riff and counterpoint vocals-catchy. Side one is over too soon.

Side two opens with the jaunty Duemila, a song where the band shows hints of what is to come musically. Already Di Palo is a force to be reckoned with vocally, and he and De Scalzi show strong compositional skills. The song breaks down before building to a fantasy orchestral ending. As before this is the bridge to our next stop on the poet's journey, Tu Ricordi Joe? (please refer to the great translations by Andrea in the first review of this album). Padre O'Brien and Tom Flaherty are plaintive and orchestrated, with some flickers of the NT sound to come. We finally arrive at the end, Andro Ancora, a revisiting of the opening song Ho Veduto. The listener gets reminded of the themes uniting the album, and also reminded that this was the best song on the album. And with that, we are done in a scant 27 minutes, a short even for the era album.

Overall, this isn't a collection of songs like the self titled follow up, but a single cohesive work, a tour through the world and an observation on really varied examples of the human condition. Great use of horns throughout. Easily identifiable as a 60's product, this is valuable as a single work, the first rock opera in Italy, and barring Days of Future Passed, one of the first concept albums in all of rock. DeAndre would show up later in 1980 in collaboration with PFM, so some may not be aware of his dabbling in Italian proto prog back in 1968.

Three stars for RPI fans, and for its importance in Italian rock history in being more of a complete work of art than just a pop album. For prog fans, unless you are into really early roots of prog, you might be disappointed.

2.75 stars

While NEW TROLLS isn't considered one of the greatest progressive rock bands that flourished in the 1970s, the band certainly was one of the first and built the early foundations that all those masters of the trade could improve upon a few years down the road. Although the band is best known for its classic "Concerto Grosso Per I New Trolls" which was like a lightning bolt for the Italian prog scene as it was playing catch up to the English bands like Yes, ELP and Genesis, the band formed by vocalist and guitarist Vittorio de Scalzi, vocalist and guitarist Nico Di Palo, keyboardist Mauro Chiarugi, bassist Giorgio D'Adamo and drummer Gianni Belleno got its start as early as 1967 in Genoa. This is probably the most dramatic band of the entire Italian scene playing out like a soap opera with hostility between band members resulting in law suits and ultimately a split into two groups: New Trolls Atomic System and Ibis.

Named after the fact one of the members had been in a band simply called I Trolls, this updated version proved to be innovative enough from its very beginning stages and even opened for The Rolling Stones on their 1967 tour based on the release of a mere single called "Senzioni." The band released its first album SENZA ORARIO, SENZA BANDIERA (No Time, No Flag) in 1968 which is considered to be the first Italian rock concept album forged by the poetry of Richard Mannerini and then reworked by the Italian singer / songwriter Fabrizio De André which crafted a single themed album where all the tracks ran together much like progressive rock albums that would follow. The music was written by Di Palo and De Scalzi with the exception of the track "Signore, io sono Irish" by Gian Piero Reverberi. Despite this being a concept album, i'm still not really sure what the concept is supposed to be about!

Given the album was released in 1968, SENZA ORARIO, SENZA BANDIERA was still far from the symphonic prog classical powerhouse that the band would release in 1971. This debut was still rooted in 60s beat music with psychedelic overtones such as the Hendrix inspired guitar sounds of Nico di Palo who would soon become one of Italy's most popular guitar heroes. Despite the 60s connections, NEW TROLLS was definitely innovating the beat pop music by offering symphonic elements even as early as this debut album with busy keyboard contributions orchestrating a classical-tinged backdrop and likewise the band was displaying the romantic vocal style that would become the staple of classic Italian prog in the 70s. The entire band contributed vocals and crafted some tight harmonies as well. Despite the progressive pop tendencies, the compositions themselves weren't very complex and based on the bluesy beat hooks that were popular during the era.

This is a rather mellow album that despite some sort of concept that will be decipherable by speakers of Italian pretty much flows from beginning to end like a very very long orchestrated pop song. The album is less than 27 minutes so it's not excessively long lasting but the musical ideas are fairly sparse with only the nascent prog ideas sprouting. The album comes across as Italy's answer to The Moody Blues' "Days Of Future Passed" only without the interesting compositions that take it anywhere exciting. The album is actually a bit boring as it seems like the same acoustic guitar strumming and music motif is extended throughout the entire album's run. Various moments do offer contrast but generally speaking, the musical flow is a bit of a one tricky pony and gets monotonous fairly quickly, a stark contrast to where NEW TROLLS would take its music just a few short years down the road. Sure it's a classic for planting the proper seeds in Italy's fertile music scene but as an interesting album in its own right it's just not very captivating.

2.5 rounded down