DUE

"Due" is the second album of this promising contemporary italian trio, after the well acclaimed debut "Unopuntosei" issued in 1997.

In their music they blend a strong symphonic prog with many melodic parts and lyrics completely sung in english (with obnvious italian accent to my ears) and sparse Gentle Giant's occasional flavour as in the opener "Prometheus Breath" (7,11 mns). No particular italian-way is recognizable, at least not in this second release.

The five compositions are all of a considerable length between 7 and 16,32 minutes long and deliver many shifting moods with many variations on keyboards instruments as grand piano, moog and mellotron-like-atmospherical sounds. Mellow acoustic guitar enriches the music as in "L'Altra Aurora" (8,45 all sung in english, despite the title in italian language), while fiery electric guitar's excursions give the sound a more modern appeal thanks also to the good interplay with bass, drums and mini-moog. Just listen for example to ""The Darkness for the Light" (10,07 mns) or to "Stop" (7,07 mns).

The small epic "Due" is about 16,32 minutes long. It opens with soft piano intro and gentle vocals reminding, a little, to Genesis who are a clear reference (sometimes delivering a true neo-prog tendency), instead of the obvious ELP (speaking of famous trios). From the fourth minute you can hear also to church organ and harpsichord interplay, then uptempos and exciting variations.

All in all is a very good album which only lacks in production, in my opinion. None of the three members are credited for drums and in fact drums are, somehow, a weak point here, even if not always mediocre. Generally the sound smells of demo recording tape (and so the cover art, unfortunately) and this is the main reason of a three stars rating, instead of a full applause and tribute for the excellence status!

3,50.