IL GRANDE LABIRINTO

On this album La Maschera di Cera really set out their stall in terms of offering a distinctive, retro-progish take on the 1970s Italian prog sound. It obviously sounded authentic - they got the nod to do Le Porte del Domani as an official sequel to Felona e Sorona, after all - but in subsequent years I feel like this has been overshadowed by superior works from La Maschera. As well as the aforementioned Le Porte, this was followed by the masterful LuxAde, which remains my favourite album of theirs, and whereas that also ran to over an hour that managed to hold my interest much better than this piece, which in many ways is a dry run for LuxAde and doesn't quite fill its running time. There's a solid 40 minute album in here padded out just a little too long.