WARM SPACED BLUE

Ingranaggi Della Valle is an Italian progressive rock band from Rome which was created in 2010. The band was created with the goal of evoking the sound and atmospheres of the historical progressive rock of the 70's, creating their own music open to fusion, ethnic and jazz-rock influences. The band released two studio albums until now. Their debut album 'In Hoc Signo', which was released in 2013, is a conceptual album with its concept focused about the times when the first Crusade was made. We can say this is a perfect representative manifesto of their music and philosophy. Just over three years later of their debut, Ingranaggi Della Valle returned with their second album 'Warm Spaced Blue'.

While their debut studio album 'In Hoc Signo' was a tribute to 70's progressive rock music, where the focus was mainly on the instruments and the playing, and less on the song writing and the actual songs, with 'Warm Spaced Blue', they took a different approach and decided to put the focus more on the song writing. But there is another main difference. Also, the tone of this album is darker and reflects the members' personal feelings and situations in their life.

Since their debut album some changes on the line up of the band occurred. But, the main difference was the change of their singer. The change to their new front man David Savarese resulted in the lyrics on this follow up effort, as the title suggests, to be sung in English. And yet with that significant change and one that may bring the band to wider notice, one thing remains clear, lyrics are secondary on this traditional, symphonic, but clearly Italian progressive agenda.

On 'Warm Spaced Blue' the band tried to maintain their stylistic unity without setting boundaries in the arrangement by choosing from a wide range of instruments. All bands' members use a wide range of instruments. While maintaining a jazz approach for writing harmonies the band acquired a big structured rock sound and, as I mentioned before, they introduced English as the singing language. 'Warm Spaced Blue' really highlights some differences from the past.

The line up on the album is Davide Savarese (lead vocals, glockenspiel and Rhodes), Flavio Gonnellini (backing vocals and guitar), Alessandro Di Sciullo (backing vocals, electric and acoustic guitars, Moog Minitaur; Mellotron, Roland TR 808/TR 909, Akai MPC Touch, Korg Kaoss Pad KP 3 and electronics), Mattia Liberati (backing vocals, Hammond B3 , Mellotron, Fender Rodhes Mk V, MiniMoog, MiniMoog Voyager and piano), Marco Gennarini (backing vocaks and bass), Antonio Coronato (bass) and Shanti Colucci (drums and percusiion). The album had also the participation of Fabio Pignatelli (bass and Fx), Stefano Vicarelli (synthesizers), Paolo Lucini (flute) and Florian Lechner (narration).

About the songs, 'Warm Spaced Blue' has only six tracks. The majority of this album is reserved for the suite 'Call For Cthulhu', with more than 20 minutes, which is divided into three parts, 'Orbison', 'Through The Stars' and 'Promise'. In between those three tracks we can find three other songs, 'Inntal', 'Lada Niva' and 'Ayida Wedo'. What is more interesting about the suite is that 'Call For Cthulhu' is separated between the other songs. So, the suite is separated by the first, third and sixth tracks. 'Call For Cthulhu' has an experimental character by the use of modern electronics. Through the suite we can immediately know this is a very special album and a special band. This is true progressive rock music and I had to think of bands like Anglagard and Echolyn, not because their music is sounding like the music of those bands but because this band is also in the premiership of progressive rock. Certainly it wasn't a coincidence that Mattias Olsson of Anglagard participated on their debut. 'Inntal' is a song with great flute atmospheres. It's a real jazz-rock song, also with great guitar parts. Somehow it reminds me of King Crimson and Anekdoten, which isn't a strange think due to the use of the Mellotron. 'Lada Niva' develops itself also into a 70's progressive rock song, with some jazzy influences. It's a great song with great diversity. On 'Ayida Wedo' the sound gets more or less stronger and is a little bit aggressive. The song is instrumental. I confess the vocals aren't in the lead of this album, as I wrote before.

Conclusion: 'Warm Spaced Blue' is a brilliant album. Interestingly, Italian progressive rock has its own style, slightly baroque and absolutely opinionated. This is a real interesting approach of composing music. It's indicated for lovers of jazz rock/fusion. But above all, it's particularly indicated for lovers of the 70's progressive rock music if you love instruments in their real and own mode. However, this isn't an easy album to digest. There is a high standard of playing and of song writing but the album is very hard to grasp after the just one hearing. One definitely needs to listen to it more often, to get the whole thing and to keep up with the quick changes of passages and moods. This is heavy stuff, but still very well played and more original than some other bands that just copy their heroes' styles. But I'm sure you will like it if you like real progressive rock music with a dark atmosphere and if you love the Mellotron work, as I do, this album is for you. It's highly recommended especially for lovers of bands like King Crimson, Anglagard and Anekdoten.

Prog is my Ferrari. Jem Godfrey (Frost*)

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