ADC

I decided on my most recent day off to play all my ACCORDO DEI CONTRARI cds in light of this review of their third studio album "AdC" from 2014. I just wanted a fresh listen of their five studio albums that span some fifteen years. And while "Violato Intatto" stands alone for me, in fact my album of the year for 2017, I was surprised how much I liked their most recent "UR-" from 2021. I think I was hard on it the first time around because I wanted another "Violato Intatto" which was their previous release to that. "Kublai" from 2011 would round out my top three and having Richard Sinclair guest on vocals on one track, a song he himself composed is pretty cool.

So "AdC" in my opinion is another really good album but I feel that it along with the debut are a step below my top three by them. They kept the same four piece lineup for the first three records, bringing in some guests to add some different flavours. Honestly, I'm glad there was a shakeup after this record because it was needed. The bass player would leave after this album, and instead of replacing him with another bassist they brought in a sax player. Then they created "Violato Intatto". I'll always remember that message I got from the keyboardist as I was caught napping on my review of that 2017 record bragging about the bass playing. He said we have no bass player, I do it through my bass pedals.

"AdC" is a little harder to get into when compared to the more easy going "Kublai", I think they made a determined effort to make this more challenging. We get six tracks over almost 38 minutes. "Tiglath" is the one that stands out for me. I just love the atmosphere and sparse sounds like electric piano and clashing cymbals before it turns spacey. Heaviness before 4 minutes then a calm late as it sounds like the beginning then it kicks in again. I really like "Dua" as well as the opener "Nadir". Another solid effort by these talented Italians but their most recent two studio albums are the ones to get.