UNO

After Osanna's split up in 1974 former members Danilo Rustici (guitar, keyboards, vocals) and Elio D'Anna (sax, flute) along with Enzo Vallicelli (drums) formed a band called Uno. The only album they released was this eponymous work, recorded in London, in the same studios of Pink Floyd...

The ghost of Osanna here seem to be "hanging on a nail" while the members of the band are trying to overcome their past, but the result, in my opinion, is not convincing at all. The song-writing is sometimes awkward (for instance "Popular Girl" is a R & B track that suddenly turns in a "Tarantella", but the passage from one part to another is too rough and it sounds "unnatural") and too much derivative. There are many influences coming from The Beatles (like in the sweet and dreamy "Stay With Me" and in the first part of "Goodbye Friend") and heavy "echoes" coming from "the dark side of the moon" (like in "Uno nel tutto", after a first "R'n'R section, or in "Goodbye Friend" finale), but the result is a kind of clumsy patchwork featuring weak vocals.

The best track (and in my opinion the only really good one on this album) is "I cani e la volpe" (The dogs and the fox), a melancholic ballad featuring lyrics where some boys who are trying to escape from a world that has gone mad and full of violence are compared to a fox hunted by dogs screaming their rage against the life... "Right Place" and "Uomo come gli altri" are not bad and closer to Osanna's sound but very far from outstanding...

In the whole, an album that can be suggested only to Osanna's die-hard fans...