FAUST

1. Preludio: Italian spoken words open the album, talking generally about the story. Nothing more.

Mark: none.

2. Bellatrix: the first true song of the ablum, starts with very soft guitars and Ghilardini's voice, and goes on for about two minutes. Then it stops and enters the distorted guitar with wah-wah, making a solo until the end.

Mark: 4.5/5

3. Mefistofele: well, here starts the real ability of the band. The song begins with a quite "enigmatic" piano riff, followed by mid-high distorted guitar notes. Then enters Ghilardini again, mixing both his voices (operatic and non-operatic), and around the third minute it begins a three minute long instrumental piece, with fast guitars in the end, introducing the second character of the album, Mefistofele. A dialogue begins between the devil and Faust, following the melody before, and the last minute is characterized by a choir saying "Pape Satan, Pape Satan, Aleppe!", words taken from the 7th Canto of the Inferno, Divine Comedy.

Mark: 5/5

4. Il Castello: this is my favourite song of the album. It opens with a guitar riff on the armonic scale, and gradually becoming softer and softer after every beat, until when Faust starts singing again. The whole song is maybe the most complex of the entaire cd, in some parts it may record classical music, thanks to the word of Ghilardini with the keyboards.

"Oltre il vento, sopra le fobie, da lassù la tua luce mi dona energie."

Mark: 5+/5

5. Faust: this is the climax of the album. It may sound tipical progressive metal in some parts, because of the fast guitar solos (one is also made with tapping), the powerchords in the beginning, also the dark lyrics of Mefistofele. But the most interesting thing is that it is in a constant raise of rhythm, with the summit around the 6th-7th minute of the track. It's important also to note that lyrically speaking three languages have been used, German in the beginning, Italian during almost the whole song and English in the end, with a part of the Sonetto 39 by Williamo Shakespeare.

Mark: 5/5

6. Neve: "Pace dopo la tempesta", I would say in Italian, that means "Peace after the storm". Infact after the monumental title song, the apex of trepidation, we have a generally calm peace, soft voices, soft guitars, and a new female singer, Margherita.

"Guarda lassù, tu non sei più sola, ma sei aiutata da altre stelle vive!"

Mark: 5/5

7. Finale: spoken words start the end of the album, but here are also accompanied by orchestral instruments, such strings, flutes, clarinets, maybe oboes.

Mark: 5/5

Conclusion: My top ten albums are thos who everyone knows, Thick As A Brick, Selling England By The Pound, Animals... Well, I consider this one at the same level of those. This means that I also want to convince every single prog listener I know to listen it, and by now many of them have my same ideas about it.

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