YS

Where to start with something generally rated as an undiscovered/hidden gem prog classic...especially one that came out of nowhere (one previous ok album) and went nowhere afterwards? My knowledge of Italian prog has improved over the years ....it used to begin and end with PFM and Banco...so I have enough 'home grown talent' to compare it to as well as the early 70's European scene. Again, am not sure comparisons are of much of a defined measuring device ...rather they help people who maybe are new to a band to have an idea of a sound...as subjective as our ears are and varied our record collections might be.

Why not start with a dark 15 minute epic...one that throws in everything from Amon Duul, VDGG, King Crimson, perhaps a touch of ELP (although the keys man is not quite a virtuoso). It is certainly a statement and I distinctly remember my first copy ...since upgraded...being slapped on in the early 80's and being taken way back (ok ten years seems nothing now) to when stuff like this was truly 'progressive' and dangerous. It certainly isn't of the more fey and gentle Italian scene although the vocal passages, apart from the mass chants/scats, soften the edges rather than add to the agit prop a la Hammill. I, and no doubt others, can be sceptical about long tracks....are they just several ideas cobbled together rather than a coherent whole...but this track Introduzione feels organic...even the Sabbath style triad doom riff section although the 'underwater effect' on the keys jars a little. You would give it 5 stars in any opening track category. So, where next? They do a continuation of a theme in shorter pieces thing. Primo Incontro extends the doom riff and tails off into a harpsichord fade that brings Focus to mind. Secondo Incontro mixes a heavy prog approach/bursts with very Crimsonesque mellotron and angular riffage. Uneasy listening for sure, but that's how it should be. It bleeds into track 4 but that annoying underwater keys effect dominates the first section. Shame as they mix more complex riffing with a more atypical Italian prog vocal and the track improves. I get hints of Gnidrolog which is a compliment! Epilogo doesn't ease up. It stutters and stop/starts its way into a piano near stomp with a near blues rock (which was considered prog at the time) vocal before an abrupt slow down change with a Zappaesque off key echo piano behind a doom bass line and kraut/Zappa style vocalising fx. Interesting for sure. For once I wish my Italian was good enough to understand the lyrics. It is the only part of the album where they extend a section and it all but wears out its welcome although as someone said to me ...'it it were Can, we would be praising the repetition of the bass riff'....Maybe we would. It goes into a false fade where it then builds into an 'operatic' end piece that is very Italian prog in sound and execution. If you are a prog fan...and why are you here if not?....than you can't help but recognize this as a classic. Then it becomes is it a 4 or 5 star album. As I said there is an over used 'underwater' effect they use on the keys and I think the guitar too that grates. Yep a time and place thing but nobodies ears have changed in 50 odd years. It must have sounded a bit off kilter even back then. Am guessing it was a 'we got this fx pedal and we are gonna use it' thing. Therefore am going down to a 4 but am more a 4.5 guy with this.