THE DANCE OF LIGHT AND SHADE

Apparently this Italian band were formed as long ago as 2001, but it was only just before Christmas last year that they released their debut album, a concept containing 20 songs which clocks in at just under 100 minutes in length. Someone can't have sent them the instructions that told them that Italian prog bands are supposed to sound a certain way, as these guys have taken influences as diverse as Pain of Salvation and Saga and have put them together in a totally innovative and refreshing manner. If you want harmony vocals combining with modern keyboard sounds, melodic hard rock, complexity and simplicity, then it has all of this and much, much more.

This is modern progressive music with a nod back to the Eighties as opposed to the Seventies, and more than one ear open to what was coming out of North America and Canada as opposed just the UK, and certainly doesn't seem like an Italian band at all. This is layered, immediate yet with hidden depths, and there is just no way that this can ever be considered a debut album as it is just way too complex and polished for a band to release an album as considered as this at a first attempt! If I had heard this in time for me to put it into my Top albums for 2017 then there is no doubt that it would have been given a high rating, but at that point I hadn't come across it, but am so very glad indeed that I have now.

The guys have been playing gigs and getting themselves about over the years, but surely this album is going to lift them to a whole new level. Prog rarely gets any better than this, and if this is what they do with their first album what on earth is going to come next? Let's just hope we don't have to wait 15 years for the next one.