EPILOG

If you are a nostalgic progressive rock fan of the 70's, especially Genesis around 1971, and think nothing similar has been done after 1980, then you should get this record to prove you are wrong. Well, the number one album of the seventies that describe the best the graceful and refined mellow parts here is definitely Genesis Nursery Cryme, mainly because of the omnipresent delicate flute, the typical organ notes and the mellotron parts. Most of the many loaded parts AMAZINGLY sound like The Flower Kings: the same guitar sound, the same drums patterns, the same bass style and even the same rhythmic organ and mellotron streams! However, it still has the old Italian progressive rock sound of the seventies, like Banco for the loaded parts and sometimes PFM for the mellow parts. Epilog is a very subtle album: even Gentle Giant is a good reference, and so is Harmonium for the mellow parts; finally, some percussive parts (small bells) and the gentle & delicate acoustic guitars are reminiscent of the Mike Oldfield's work of the 70's.

The only negative thing that I have to say if we dare to compare it to the best works of the 70's is that the album here has too much the ON/OFF style: many loaded & complex parts are often followed by too empty, lengthy and silent bits. For instance, the useless "Rosten", which only lasts 14 seconds, is so irrelevant that it makes "More fool me" on the Selling England by the pound album a complete masterpiece, as a comparison. Obviously, the airs here are not as memorable and as spine tingling as the ones in the 70's; is it because the album is totally instrumental? I do not think so.

For the reasons explained in the previous paragraph, I have to remove 0.5 star to this otherwise masterpiece of anachronic progressive rock.

Rating: 4.5 stars