IL NOME DEL VENTO

I don't think this is where most fans of Rock Progressivo Italiano would recommend that you begin. The genre has been around for over thirty years, and I'm sure that the music that got them into the genre has been around almost as long. Yet this album was my introduction.

I purchased it because of it's high position in the top albums of 2009. I have listened to it many times, but I have not yet listened to any other Rock Progressivo Italiano. And while it is clearly progressive rock, it is different enough from the other genres of prog that to try and relate it to them would be unfair to the music contained on the disc. With no reference point to know if this music would satisfy fans of Rock Progressivo Italiano, I am in a unique position of rating it merely on its own merits.

To me, one of the most important things about music is that it acts upon you. I can listen to music that has everything that, mentally, I appreciate in music, yet if it doesn't make me feel, ultimately I am not going to love the music a whole lot. There is no denying that the music pressed into this disc has acted on me quite significantly.

The first time I listened to this album, I was lucky enough to be able to listen to it while doing nothing else. However, I was tired at the time, and although I was enjoying the music, right before the track "Ogni Storia' started up, I closed my eyes and just let the music wash over me as I half-dozed. I never did fall asleep, but instead, the music gave me an epic daydream, the events influenced by the music.

The daydream lasted from Ogni Storia until the end of Cuore Sacro, and in that 5 song / 25 minute span, I went on an adventure that rivals Supper's Ready.

Daydream - skip ahead if you don't care

The daydream started with the leader of a group of pilgrims travelling across America in a wagon train, burying a baby who had taken ill during their adventures. The wagon train then continued, but hit a series of hardships, for which the leader was blamed and eventually kicked out. Later, he returned, and tried to kill the current leader of the wagon train (the son of the baby that had died), but failed and was killed, awaking in the underworld next to the baby who had also died. After a harrowing journey through the halls of the underworld, he met with one of the leaders of the underworld, who instructed him to raise the baby according to her directions. Hundreds of years later, the baby was the equivalent of an 18 year old youth in our world, and had amassed an army of the underworld that stretched as far as the eyes could see, which he was to lead into our world.

Meanwhile, on our world and in roughly our time, Spirit Wolf, who subsisted only on the beliefs of a few natives, felt the change as the army of the underworld crossed into our world. He fled and warned his people, and by staying ever ahead of the army of the undead, they were able to rescue and convert all those who survived and escaped their attack. This lasted until the tribe of natives and converts was larger than those remaining that believed in the underworld. The underworld, as a result, lost much of its power, and nature was able to wash them away.

Finally, although the majority of the world was now living in harmony with nature, as taught by Spirit Wolf, there were those who still clung to their cities, and a war broke between the two groups, those under Spirit Wolf attacking the cities with fire. When the last city was burning, city-goers carried burning timbers to a great forest, in the hopes of burning it down with them as a last stand. And it did catch fire, but nature summoned a great wind to send the fire right back to the city, burning down what little had survived.

Daydream is over

I have not been able to listen to the album without remembering my daydream since, so it has taken on additional meaning that the artist probably never intended. (Although the fact that my daydream ended with a giant wind, before I knew that the album name meant "The name of the wind", is interesting.) But furthermore, the sound of the album is one that I enjoy a lot as well. It is the perfect sound to listen to when one is resting, or to help one get into a relaxed state. For the past few days, this has been THE album that I turned to to listen to whilst going to sleep (which is not to imply that the music is boring).

Overall, I would recommend this album to any prog fan - fan of Rock Italiano Progressivo or not. Perhaps not quite a masterpiece, but definitely music that has the potential to act strongly on its listener.