L'ISOLA DI NIENTE

L'isola di Niente is a great album from PFM, but at the same time it feels like PFM abandoned the wonderful niche that they had just found on Per Un Amico.

The album starts off with the title track which is a great song, but not my favorite from the album. The first two mintues or so has nothing but voices, which may be mellotron, that sort of swell and meander around, but don't really do anything too interesting. I guess this kind sets the mood for the song. Once the guitar kicks in, the song is great with many mood and tempo changes, complex parts, rocking parts, orchestral parts, and we even get a Fripp-esque guitar solo at the end of the song. Is My Face On Straight? starts off very strangely; the transitions are quite unnatural and abrupt. Also, the lyrics are kind of preachy, and not very deep. After about the first two minutes of the song, it gets much better and only gets better and better after that. The song ends with a great accordian (I think that's what it is) solo that sounds very much like Supertramp.

The first song of side 2 is La Luna Nuova and is my personal fav from the album. It sounds much more like something from Per Un Amico or Storia. The song is fast and upbeat and has some head spinning guitar work, especially towards the end, where the guitar speeds up to the point where it sounds like there is going to be an explosion. The last two songs are a bit of a dissapointment, but there not bad. Dolcissima Maria is a straight up ballad (possibly a love song, but I don't speak Italian, so I'm not sure). The first couple minutes of the song are so quiet, you can barely hear it, and the last two minutes are basically the same flute melody repeated over and over. The flute part is nice and sounds very much like the Moody Blues, but it gets a little too repetitive. The last song Via Lumiere starts out with a couple minutes of bass that again, meanders but never really goes anywhere. Once the song really gets going it gets better but it is never really that good. The first part sounds pretty experimental. This moves into a sort of free jazz improv section followed by a repeat of the first part with flute replacing the violin, which sounds much better in my opinion. THe last section is a rich organ chord progression repeated over and over with light, high-pitched guitar played Fripp-style in the background. This sounds nice, actually reminding me a little of George Harrison.

In closing, L'isola di Niente is an album worth getting especially if you have the first two from PFM. The vocals do sound very different on this album compared with the first two, and this does take some getting used to. Once you get past the new sounding vocals, there is enough good music here to warrant repeated listenings.