PER UN AMICO

PFM churns out its second album in less than a year, that magical 1972, which will remains their best year. Flavio Premoli joins Franco Mussida and Mauro Pagani to the writing of the music and more elaborate and progressive arrangements will follow.

The first side of "For a Friend" follows the structure of "Storia di un Minuto". First piece: melodic but orchestral song; second extroverted piece, with gladness, almost an ethnic dance; an finally as third song a symphonic piece.

1. Appena un po' (Just a little (7:43)). Orchestral beginning in crescendo with synths (had PFM already heard Genesis' Watcher of the Skies?), more delicate than "Impressions of September" of the debut album, and in fact the classical guitar of Mussida arrives immediately, then accompanied by the flute by Pagani, who finally traces a beautiful melody (it took almost two minutes), and by Premoli's harpsichord, which gives an incentive to the sophistication and pomposity of the arrangements. The sound redesigns the melody with the electric instruments (it is all a continuous orchestral refinement) and around 3 minutes the singing arrives, with some sweet, unexcelled choirs. Around 4 and a half minutes comes a classic, baroque piece, a minuet worthy of the Gentle Giant, almost math-rock, a typical prog digression, nice, but too long. Until the voice returns and brings back the melody. Around 6 and a half minutes the grand finale starts, in crescendo, with Premoli's synths to draw again the main melody with a very nice solemn mood. Very pretentious track, which shows that PFM has become the most proggy Italian group, with all the positive (creativity) and negative (research of sophistication and technicality at the expense of emotion) sides of the case. Rating 8.

2. "Generale". (General (4:18)). Instrumental piece with continuous changes of rhythm, and solos of the instrumentalists. Beautiful the initial piece with Pagani on the violin and beautiful the solo of Mussica electric's guitar. It looks like an ethnic dance, we are definitely in the field of folk-rock, then the music stops and an acoustic march begins: it is the usual prog digression, now we have a syncopated acoustic blues, followed by the folk-rock piece that this time is played electric. It is a real tour de force, a music with a sustained rhythm, a display of virtuosity... in my opinion excessive, too similar to the exercise of style, although always of the highest quality. Rating 7,5 / 8.

The first two songs are good, but they don't reach the heights of "Impressioni di Settembre" and "E 'Festa".

3. Per un Amico (For a Friend (5:23)). It is the masterpiece of the album. Delicate beginning with the flute, Genesis- style, choir voices alternating with the violin pendants. The voices are a little limp, too effeminate, but the instrumental part, very proggy, is fabulous, thanks to the interlude characterized by the violin solo, which takes place together with a fine work on the guitar and an odd rhythm played by Franz Di Cioccio. Then comes the acoustic guitar and the virtuosity of Di Piazza's bass. Maybe in the solo the electric guitar would have been better than the acoustic guitar. Finally the synthesizers arrive. The song is a show of solos, until finally the initial melody restarts but ends with a crescendo of synths without the singing. The end is not good. It is a small production and technical masterpiece, with a fascinating part thanks to Pagani's violin. But there is much more sophistication than inspiration. Rating 8+. This song is better than Dove... Quando part 1. But overall this side is a little inferior to the corrispondent on debut album.

End of A-side.

The second side does not repeat the structure of the three songs of the debut album and relies on an 8-minute mini-suites, focusing on more dilated compositions.

4. Il Banchetto (The Banquet (8:39)). Beginning as an acoustic ballad, voices with choirs again, pleasant music. Around two minutes there is Premoli's instrumental interlude, graceful, cute but around 4 minutes the music becomes fabulous music, with sounds similar to the Gentle Giant of Acquiring The Taste, really cloying. When it comes to 5 and a half minutes, a jazz piano replaces the synths, bringing a more serious and classic feeling. At the end the choirs return to conclude the narration. This song, of excessive length, in the second part described the quintessence of the flaws of prog and provided the weak point of the album. Fortunately, the first and the third movement are rather good. Rating 7.

5. Geranio (Geranium (8:03)). Bucolic, acoustic beginning, thanks to Pagani's flute, very present, then the choirs arrived, but they are always soft, neutral, almost asexual: they are the weak point of the album, it was much better when Mussida sang alone in the debut album . A syncopated, bluesy, very strange instrumental moment follows, in this second part Di Cioccio has a way to let off steam. An instrumental variation arrives, an interlude: it is a value, it seems to hear Richard Strauss, the violin noticed remarkable melodic peaks, and in the end a circus gong arrives. The choirs return, the rhythm increases more and more, in a paroxysmal way, we are listening to a very refined, melodic, high-class but somewhat cloying and pompous symphonic prog rock that then freezes, paralyzes itself within a repetitive phrase for over a minute, ending the record with this fading: we were witnessing all this wonder of creative arrangements and then the Lp ends repeating the musical phrase until the fading? But what came to mind at PFM? Remarkable track but missed masterpiece. Rating 8.

In this second album, more than in the first, there is a lack of a true singer, who could shows delicacy and determination, could expresses various emotions. The singing is in fact always managed with choirs, doubled voices very sweet and a little anemic, not very expressive: emotions do not convey, pathos is not present. It just whispering the words almost asexually. I am not saying that these choirs are ugly, on the contrary, they are very well balanced, and the voices are pleasant, but they lack depth and interpretation. On the contrary, the music is much more complex, layered and elaborated compared to the debut Lp, this album is definitely prog, according to the canons of symphonic prog. But the songs don't reach the quality, very high, of "Storia di un minuto", and one of them is rather weak. So, overall, for me this album is an almost masterpiece: rated 8.5/9, four and a half stars.