CAMPO DI MARTE

A band from Florence led by guitarist Enrico Rosa, bass player Richard Ursillo and drummer/flutist Mauro Sarti, who found them in 1971.Keyboardist Alfredo Barducci and ex-I Califfi drummer Carlo Felice Marcovecchio completed the original line-up.Campo Di Marte were constantly playing live under different names and even recorded this album during their early days, which was released in 1973 by the United Artists label.

This is a good example of early-70's Italian Prog with multiple influences, great technical level and decent but far from excellent songwriting.The more powerful tracks offer good electric solos and a powerful rhythm section in a Hard Rock vein with plenty of breaks, not unlike IL BIGLIETTO PER L'INFERNO or I CALIFFI.During these pieces the use of Mellotron, organ and piano add the appropriate symphonic-inclined colors along with a certain grandiosity.But there are also tracks, where the gears are definitely down, having an obvious Folk vibe along with strong Classical inspirations.Acoustic crescendos with violin and horn arrangements, dreamy flutes and supporting synths create nice and ethereal soundscapes in the vein of PREMIATA FORNERIA MARCONI.Vocals are not particularly strong but they are decent to say the least.What this band lacked actually was some really great songwriting with a few tracks suffering from cohesion.

By the time ''Campo Di Marte'' was out, the band already had lost interest in the project and split up with Rosa moving to Denmark to work as a session guitarist, Ursillo joining Seansation's Fix and Sarti playing with Bella Band.A brief concert-reunion took place at the dawn of the new millenium with only Rosa and Sarti from the early days, resulting to the live release ''Concerto Zero : Live 1972/2003'' and material both from the 70's and the recent days.

Meanwhile the sole release of the band deserves to be placed among the strong albums of the Italian scene.Definitely not a masterpiece but anyone who like's the Italian Prog sound or diverse and eclectic prog works should add this in his priority list.Strongly recommended...3.5 stars.