LA RELAZIONI PERICOLOSE

The Badge (the name refers to a Cream's piece) took shape in the early seventies in Bernate Ticino, a town located about 25 kilometres west of Milan. During the seventies the band went through many changes in personnel and had a good live activity on the local scene but never got the chance to properly record an album and slowly faded into oblivion. In 2006 The Badge came to life again but it wasn't until 2014 that they finally released their long awaited debut album entitled "Le relazioni pericolose" on the independent Ma.Ra.Cash Records label with a line up featuring Angelo Isaia (keyboards, vocals), Sergio Isaia (bass, guitar, vocals), Fiore Colombo (guitars, bass, vocals) and Pino Atzori (drums). Although the music sounds a bit too derivative and the vocal parts might not be perfect I'm sure that Italian prog lovers will find this work interesting enough. The beautiful artwork by Gigi Cavalli Cocchi depicts its content and invites you to explore it...

The long, complex title track that opens the album, 'Le relazioni pericolose' (The dangerous liaisons), was inspired by the French epistolary novel of the same title written by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos in 1782, and by "Valmont", a 1989 romantic drama film directed by Milos Forman based on the same novel. The music and lyrics evoke the story of the Marquise de Merteuil and the Vicomte de Valmont, two evil doers who use seduction as a weapon to control and exploit other people and enjoy their cruel, cynic games. It's a portrait of the French nobility just before the French Revolution that here is rendered with a strong sarcastic tone and a musical patchwork featuring original passages, many classical quotes and a short tribute to the score of the film composed by Christopher Palmer. Eventually, love succumbs to pride and vanity and all ends in tragedy with the image of a cold autumn wind sweeping the falling leaves on Valmont's grave...

'Anni '70' (Seventies) is a track that looks back with a strong sense of nostalgia to a period when the musicians of the band where younger and music was their only drug. Emotions, great expectations, dreams that along the years were blotted out by reality, no computers nor pay TV, the feeling that they could change the world. Anyway, the music and lyrics underline how the members of band are still playing together and why those memories can never die for them...

'Ancora un giorno dopo la fine' (One more day after the end) starts by a keyboard intro evoking the come back from the dark of a mysterious spectre. Then the rhythm rises and the music and lyrics describe the spectre wandering all day long through the woods and reflecting about the time he spent as a living being. Eventually, he realizes that even a bitter life is better than the void and that the strange silence surrounding him on Earth is better than an eternal peace... The music every now and again could recall Deep Purple and alternates hard rock rides to calmer classical inspired passages...

'Sotto il cielo d'Africa' (Under the Africa sky) begins by jumping electric guitar riffs and rolling organ surges that later alternate to more reflective sections. In the first part the lyrics evoke troubles, wars, exploitation, poverty... Africa is described as a paradise that was turn into hell! Then, after a short quote from Dvorak's New World there's room for hope with the lyrics evoking singing children, notes of peace and echoes of joy...

"Burokrat" draws in music and words the caustic portrait of a heartless bureaucrat. This is a curious, dangerous kind of animal that you might find behind the desk of a post office or, worse, in a tax office!... Next comes 'Dichiarazione' (Declaration) that after a pulsing start that could recall PFM turns into a dreamy mood evoking the balance between man and nature and sweet, clear memories...

The Gothic closer 'La leggenda del lago' (The legend of the lake) begins by the sound of a storm and a dark church organ section that conjure up the awakening of Ester, the lady of a mysterious lake. Then the music and lyrics unfold her story. Many damned men got lost in her arms, a dark figure walking in the night on the lake shores, always looking for love and never satisfied. At dawn ghosts of fire and processions of larvae escort her in her palace hidden into the deep waters of the lake where she can avoid the sunlight...

On the whole, an interesting work that deserves a try.