LEMURES

Renowned as one of Italy's most innovative prog rock bands of the 1970s IL BALLETTO DI BRONZO may have started out as a pseudo-prog hard psych 60s hangover band when it hit the scene in 1970 with its debut release "Sirio 2222" but what the band delivered two years later with its groundbreaking sophomore album "Ys" is still sending shock waves into the ears of anyone who hears the band's masterful magnum opus for the first time.

This Naples based band pretty much dropped its groundbreaking bomb on the musical world and then disappeared like a stealth foo fighter of World War II. The aftermath some 50 years later still finds "Ys" to be not only one of the most innovative and daring prog rock albums that emerged from Italy in the wild unhinged 1970s but still remains one of the absolute pinnacles of creative prog from anywhere in the world of any time.

While the band would release a few sporadic singles in the 70s and 80s and an archival release in 1990, few would have predicted any true resurrection of the band especially after prog's popularity waned in the late 1970s however with the resurgence of the prog scene in the 1990s many bands once thought extinct slowly but surely emerged from the past and reinventing themselves in the modern world. IL BALLETTO DI BRONZO wasn't one of them at least until Lino Ajello and Marco Cecioni reformed the band in 2013 only this time dropping the IL (Italian masculine definite article meaning THE).

In 2016 the clumsy sounding "Cuma 2016 d.C" under the moniker IL BALLETTO DI BRONZO DI LINO AJELLO & MARCO CERCIONI was a complete dud with hardly anyone noticing that it came and went all the while rabid new fans of prog were discovering the band's masterpiece "Ys." It would have been safe to assume that this band was forever gone but never say never in the prog world as the new BALLETTO DI BRONZO has emerged once again in 2023 with a bonafide new studio album titled LEMURES.

One can immediately put aside any past glories on the level of "Ys" as this is solely the solo project of lead vocalist / keyboardist Gianni Leone with the assistance of two other musicians in the form of Ivano Salvatori (bass) and Riccardo Spilli (drums). LEMURES is a modern day album with a time length to match. Rather than sticking to a classic time run of around 40 minutes, LEMURES slinks in just past the 58-minute mark with nine tracks in all. While the album sounds like it's definitely connected to the 1970s rendition of IL BALLETTO DI BRONZO, this new album, unlike many Italian contemporaries, really takes liberties in experimenting and playing with modern recording techniques not available during the days of "Ys. The result is a somewhat retro sounding 70s Italian prog sound matched by modern reckless abandon.

Unlike some singers of the golden years of prog, Leone's vocal style has held up surprisingly well with that same distinct array of stylistic approaches displayed on "Ys." Unlike "Ys" there is a sparsely arrangement in instrumentation with seemingly no guitars to be heard. Instead the music is based around beefy bass grooves and wild, even frenetic keyboard performances. The helter skelter schitzo approach does bring "Ys" to mind at many moments but the keyboards are a bit more diverse and crazed than even on that album. For a 70s artist to retain such a passion to add his own weirdness stamp to the music is actually quite nice as many of the old Italian prog bands making a comeback revert to the safe traditionalisms.

In many ways LEMURES reminds of Goblin as the seductive and dark keyboard grooves and ambience evoke the horror soundtracks of that band so in many ways it sounds like the perfect marriage between albums like "Ys" and "Suspiria" along with the occasional bouts of normalcy that would bring PFM, Banco and other operatic bands of the golden era to mind. What really makes this album register high in the prog world is the brash boldness to incorporate deviant time signatures wherever and whenever the mood hits. Normally a characteristic forever lost in youth but Leone has nurtured his inner angst well.

I rarely expect to find a classic band releasing excellent material but "Ys" has long been a personal favorite (like many others) and i felt it obligatory to at least hear this album and i have to admit that i'm pleasantly surprised by its dedication to prog excesses, the kind that made "Ys" so ridiculously amazing. Sure it's not up to par with band's heyday but for an album that has been released 51 years after its peak, it's quite a treat to hear how Leone's approach still stands out from the crowd so many decades later. The entire album is appealing with a diverse array of clever arrangements, keyboard freak-outs and time signature attacks. A surprisingly comeback indeed.