ANTOLOGIA 1970-1980

The very idea of an anthology of Le Orme's classic period, plus the less classic period that followed it, strikes me as absurdly overreaching. In general, Le Orme's albums were best listened to as a unit, in which the whole is decidedly more than the sum of its parts. So while this is undeniably a collection of good songs, it's first flaw is that, in the right company, they would be great songs. The second flaw is the inclusion of material which, although temporally situated in the 1970s, is stylistically firmly entrenched in the 1960s psych sound. Four songs were included from "Collage", which, while not bad, have far more in common with The Doors than with what le Orme would be associated later. Also, a CD of 16 tracks taken from 8 albums should not include 8 tracks from the first 2 albums. While the other sourced album is maybe their best, "Uomo di Pezza", this is actually problematic because the lack of context is more glaring in its delegates than in the lone representatives of other albums.

Does anything work here? Yes, plenty actually, the remainder of the CD features one, at most 2 tracks from a variety of the band's 1970s efforts, and they have been well chosen. Among the highlights are "Verita Nascoste" featuring superb violin, the great pop rock tune "Canzone D'Amore", the catchy and hypnotic "Se io iavora" from "Storia o Leggenda", "Felona", and the acoustic delight "Fine di un viaggio" from their last 1970s album, "Florian". What is somewhat misleading is the preponderance of songs that were track 2 on the original LPs, which for le Orme was traditionally where they placed an acoustic ballad.

This anthology is a good but not ideal introduction to Le Orme which might also suit those who have a few of their 1970s albums and want to fill in the gaps with highlights from others. Just don't expect the original concepts, musical or otherwise, to survive the translation to this compilation.