PER ASPERA AD ASTRA

Now established in the Roman musical environments and with a growing audience, Taproban shows a greater maturity with their latest effort: PER ASPERA AD ASTRA. Although the leader Gianluca De Rossi and the other musicians recall Emerson Lake & Palmer, maneuvering well between the atmospheres of Genesis and the rhythms of Jethro Tull, interesting and personal suggestions not fail. Remarkable is the revised version of "Outside Nowhere", compelling and engaging. Track n. 5, titled "Nexus", where Antonio Marangolo's melancholy saxophone appears, a pleasant novelty, perfectly harmonized with Roberto Vitelli's guitar and Gianluca De Rossi's keyboards, who also shows off a more melodic and confident voice, is remarkable. Track 6 and 7, respectively entitled "D.I.A.N.A". and "Agata Lost in the Mirror Whale", are very interesting. In particular, the opening of the latter seems to remind the heyday of P.F.M., and seems to underline the difficulty of framing in too rigid patterns the musical style of the band. Not by chance in "Entwinings", De Rossi's piano solo somehow serves as a prologue to the last track "Octopus", and looks like a mixture between Roger Hodgson and Tony Banks. The last track is a great combination of feverish bass lines, coloured electronic effects, keyboards that seem to play on the water's edge, going to the beat of a rousing waves, and percussions that follow and adequately support the time signature lead by De Rossi. Thanks to Taproban we can say that there is still good music, as these musicians formed themeselves in the right "school" of the timeless, unique and unrepeatable progressive era of the 70s. 5 Stars!