EUROPA MINOR

Here comes one more marvelous Italian release from this year. Immediately I fell in live with the music which blends folk instruments with symphonic vibes touching the best asmosphere you can think of. Unfortunately the second half of the record don't match the first half and it's disfavoured of its length. The 1970s releases has an advantage in their shorteness, they didn't need fillers. I won't go so far to call any of these songs fillers, the quality is very high.

This music is mostly perfect. The entering song "Waterloo" proves everything you want in adventurous experiments, folky instruments and great vocals of course spiced with good melody. The albums cover is amongst the best this year, very elegant and Tugs title "Europa minor" makes us think of another symphonic group, Turkish "Asia minor"(which I have to listen to). As well as the cover seems many of the songs be about historical actions like the amazing "Pietroburgo 1824" which shows a Russian feeling(it could be the mandolin thinks it is a balalajka) and a vital melody. As I use to say: "wonderfulidado!". "La brigata dei dottori" is as good as those mentioned and "Il sogno di Jennifer" is also as exuberant as prog can be in its best moments. Those tracks has such a rich soundscape, sprung of many instruments and a bunch of great ideas. Every track is worth listening but I think I have mentioned the best ones.

The only thing this music loses on is that it's too much of it. A 70s standard in lenght would have given this a brigher place in history. The worst track is more than good so I wouldn't complain about details.

Tugs shows to be a ten-man-ensemble made up by bass(Bruno Rotolo), drums(Fabio Giannitrapani), vocals and guitar(Pietro Contorno), electric guitar(Nicola Melani), keyboards(Marco Susini), cello(Martina Benifei), flute(Claudio Fabiani), mandolin(Antonio Ghezzani), violin(Francesco Carmignani) and percussion(Matteo Scarpettini). Once again I also want to praise the cover picture! Tugs record Europa Minor is recommended for you and I hope people will discover it, 18 ratings isn't enough. Four strong stars!

All songs: (10/10) Pietroburgo 1824, Waterloo, La brigata dei dottori, Il sogno di Jennifer, (9/10) La Gloria (8/10) La Corte, Le Colline de Ems, Il pianto, Nostra signora Borghesia, Canzone per un anno (7/10) I bambini d'Inverno, Nanou