H.E.X.

The crew for the Nodo Gordiano has been renewed once again, with the entry of Davide Guidoni from Daal (Drums, percussion and keyboards) who joins the veteran Andrea De Luca (vocals, bass, acoustic and electric guitar, synthesizers e saz) and by Filippo Brilli (Sax) H.E.X. it includes all the musical experiences that over the years have allowed the Roman group to produce, in over 30 years of career, six works (including the present one) very different from each other. We therefore find the solid Crimsonian foundations of the beginnings, as well as the many derivations with an experimental flavor collected in subsequent works that now represent a further starting point for new shores. The sensations that arise from listening to this album are many and surprising, precisely because the elements involved are so many and the structure of the two suites "Heng" and "Kou" is anything but predictable. It almost seems to sail at times from the parts of certain cosmic couriers, only to end up in the most consonant and reassuring waters of the crimson king.

H.E.X. is a compendium of elements that make it grandiloquent: orchestral symphonic colours, psychedelic smokes, electronic and ambient elements, ethnic colors, some touch of dark, Floydian landscapes and sounds that are sometimes square and robust and at other times still delicate and melancholy, all also set within a single track.

So here is "Heng", still the highest expression that the group has ever conceived, futurist and electronic, with its dark and enveloping synths and with its long Crimsonian shadows. 26 minutes of chasing electric sequences and majestic, seasoned with a nervous Jacksonian sax, which makes the song even more eclectic and with a thousand facets ... now meditative, now energetic, now incredibly slow, tense and icy and still intensely romantic at the end, with the synths of De Luca in the background that draw dreamy landscapes.

Equally disturbing and iridescent "Kou" which opens with the reassuring sound of chimes, and then leaves room for a first meditative, ethnic part, with Mellotrons in the distance that draw disturbing clouds that creep between the acoustic guitar chords. soon the sounds are strengthened and give life to angular and jagged musical structures thanks to the interaction between the electric guitar and the drums and the Sax. The second part of this immense suite is perhaps the most attributable to the classic styles of progressive, with the Crimson King in the foreground, however, has always been one of the reference points of this band.

H.E.X. Perhaps more than in the past it has an experimental face but at the same time "reassuring", leaving little space for form and much for substance.

The album, as you may have understood, is a work of high value, made up of continuous fluctuations, always in search of something elusive like a kind of labyrinth full of symbols, abstractionism and dejà-vu. I was very happy to get lost in the maze of this record.