ROUND MIDNIGHT

Our own finnforest has expressed the exact sentiments (as he usually does with aplomb and flair) about this rather "difficult" album. If you are looking for bright piano exuberances, upbeat guitar runs, sugar-coated synthesizer sweeps and lyrics about fulfillment, happiness, bliss and how life is so beautiful, then ear-candy this is not! More depressive content than your recent Porcupine Tree, the last 2 Galleons , Blackfield or the latest Fish albums is assured. The mood here is symbolic of today's new religion: a very apathetic and bleak modern gloom. Kind of strange only because from 1945 to 1990, we all labored under the nuclear threat of MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction), while in last 18 years we have been living in a surreal "Lalaland" of utter selfishness, social degradation, corruption and deceit. The Internet has made us immune from having a conscience. Funny what can happen when you turn off the lights temporarily in ICBM silos, we seem to become more primitive and less wise. I personally regret that many artists now eschew the desire for masses to reflect and highlight more awareness. I guess democracy has been replaced by hypocrisy (most probably it occurred after the fall of Troy but it was kept quiet, under wraps). With such a preamble, I think I have managed to properly prepare you for this recording, ready to absorb a little reality check. Why not! Whereas Moongarden's previous output was clearly influenced by Camel, this album takes a different contemporary direction, both in sound and in content, which had started with the previous The Gates of Omega. Nothing has changed as far as musicians are concerned, pretty much the same famiglia ; we are perhaps in a more current Gabriel mode, with heavy focus on Luca Palleschi's vocals. I also felt somewhat uncomfortable with his album as I quickly dismissed it and half-heartedly promised to get back to it later. Which is now. The cover is harsh bright light white, plastic neon sterility and innuendo-laced mini artwork boxes (the stringed puppet and "everything is fading away" mentioned by Jim). The title track "Round Midnight" initiates the angst with a bare delivery, FXed with sheens of urban gloom, a traveling electro-bass groove, a tappety-tap drum beat, some marimba-patch keyboards all combining to provide the platform for Luca to wail and howl. The contrasts between the cold atmospherics and the despairing voice are instantly appealing, a very beguiling modern take one, with a slithering solo by Davide Cremoni (a fine Hackett/Latimer hybrid) to set this piece well into the early dawn. "Wounded" starts off like a typical Porky Tree tune, acoustic guitar with heavily shrouded almost whispered vocals, oddball noises in the background, a gorgeous mellotron mid-section, evolving into a steamroller guitar theme, great drumming and another sibilant guitar foray that sustains the pain. "Killing The Angel" sounds even more contemporary (the wrenchingly pained "sound of our times " vocals), with a wobbling bass looping around the beat, weaving through odd sampled sounds and effects, the level of rage slowly rising in intensity, monolithic walls of keys rumbling overhead. "Lucifero" initiates with a somewhat contradictory heavenly mellotron choir, then electric piano and vocals take over the stage, both conspiring to be very fashionably minimalist. Certainly this is quite different take from the usual prog fare ("Jesus Christ crucified in space"), with suddenly lush drum driven symphonic blares combining with another bleeding Cremoni fill. "Slowmotion Streets" proposes some deliberate oboe /cello (always a scintillating combo) introductories , very measured and unhurried with a definite Gabrielesque vocal line as if off the recent "Up" ("the radio keeps talking while everything is grinding to a halt"), a rather morose description of urban realities where frenzy commutes with apathy, quantity fighting and defeating quality, numbers everywhere and everybody. Austere material that prepares well for the 10 minute+ hard driving opus "Learning to Live Under the Ground", as apt a descriptive for the decaying metropolitan ferrying of stunned masses, a subhuman subway that may have many stations but ultimately leads "nowhere". Depressing? ("Can't you see that nobody communicates anymore"), you are darn right. The musical context fulfills the mandate with appropriate doses of dissonance and repetition, with an extended guitar intervention that holds no restraint, until the piano elegantly takes over. Totally unconventional and hence convincing, mirroring the hermetic municipal ghetto we should be calling our lonely cities. "Coda: The Psychedelic Subway Ride" a less than 2 minute piece conveys exactly this bleak man-made landscape. Dull and hypnotic, sad and hopeless. "Nightmade Concrete" continues the tangible cement that holds this album together, eschewing prettiness and replacing it with drab reality, hard playgrounds were children do not laugh, too busy learning the joys of greedy survival, all searching for some concrete escape from the grim routine. A butterfly synth solo puts the dreariness to rest. The best way to describe the final piece is with the title "Oh By the way, we are so many in this city and so damn alone". How true. While perhaps not a masterpiece of the new Italian School of Prog, we are obviously in the presence of a different class of musician/artists who are unafraid to paint an ugly picture. 4 street beggars