LE PORTE DEL DOMANI

Ask me which were the best prog Italian bands of the seventies, I will say PFM, Banco and Le Orme instantly. But what about today's? Well, certainly La Maschera di Cera. Of course, the connoisseurs will tell me, no wonder since it's one of the talented and prolific Fabio Zuffanti's projects together with Finisterre! But this doesn't explain everything. You have to see them live to understand it's a real band. I could do it at the famous Prog Sud festival and it was pure bliss! Well, they walked through a new step with this new opus. A double one in fact, since, in the great seventies tradition, this album is available in Italian of course but in English too, as their famous predecessors did. No wonder (bis) if the Italian version is as always the best but this may open countries where prog heads don't understand Dante's language. But I forgot to say what this work is all about. Many bands tend to re-record yesterday's gems: think of Pretty Thing's "SF Sorrow" or Banco's "Darwin" (both jewels). Here the purpose (and what a purpose!) if imagining the following chapters to "Felona e Sorona", yes Le Orme's masterpiece released in 1973 (and available in English too by the way)! And it's a success. The atmosphere of that milestone is here while this new disc is not a photocopy. For instance the very first and last tracks clearly echo "Felona e Sorona" but even go beyond. This has been my summer's favourite record, the disc you can't stop listening to as we used to do in the seventies. No more fast hearing looking for the usual recipes. No, just the feeling listening to a Magnum opus.