CREAZIONE

The second album by 90s Italian heavy prog outfit A PIEDI NUDI, "Creazione" is a manic offering - other reviews have mentioned similarities with KING CRIMSON and while it is true there are moments of a Crimson-esque mad intricacy I would downplay linking the two as much as others seem to. There are a billion movements within each song here and A Piedi Nudi do not often take the time to fully develop any of them.

The first and longest track, 'Memorie', is representative of the album as a whole in that often there appears to be a kind of identity crisis within the band as to what kind of music they are trying to make. Cristian Chinaglia on keyboards has a taste for the mental and almost psychedelic whilst Gardinale's guitar style gets stuck in heavier, more traditional prog metal textures. The song as a result switches between bouts of each and they don't seem to really cohere together very much. As a result the song seems at points disjointed and the flow between its countless movements can be inscrutable. That said, there are some great moments of compromise between the two and it becomes clear by the end that Gardinale is a more versatile player than he can seem.

'Partenza' is more consistent and moves seamlessly from the playful to the serious, with some nice guitar and organ interaction in the process. Another point to note here is the odd inclusion of a dedicated french horn player in the band, which (when he actually plays instead of just sitting twiddling his thumbs!) adds a rich and unusual depth to the madness. Similarly, in the last section of the track the drummer downs his sticks and picks up...a flute! It's just one of a number of pastoral twists that give the album the occasional strange acid-trip-medieval-court edge seen on the cover art.

'Lungo il Sentiero' starts similarly and then takes a giant sidestep into distorted guitars and heavy metal rhythms. The shift between the two is done well but I'm not sure where it was meant to go given that within a minute it's disappeared without trace back into where is was before. The opening minutes of 'Regina Del Torrente' are nice and intricate, with meandering piano balancing out the heaviness nicely and a crimsony guitar moment thrown in too. There's some more fast guitarwork going on in 'Dea Delle Rocce Signore Del Vent' and 'Creazione' which have a similar manic feel to most of the other songs. All the songs here seem to have a stock starting point of fast and heavy which the band do diverge from in a variety of interesting ways (such as the minute's showcase of more paced guitarwork at the end of 'Creazione') but always ultimately return to. 'Nuova Vita' is the maddest track of all, not sure how to describe it, it borders on the bizarre with lazy vocals and frantic discordant synths very uncomfortably juxtaposed.

I haven't mentioned the vocals much, they often seem to be the weakest point of the album, though the vocalist is also the drummer AND flautist so I don't suppose you can expect him to be amazingly specialised- maybe this is just an Italian style choice but he seems to be.. er... 'limited' in his choice of notes(!) He comes into his own more when there's not as much else going on, such as in 'Memorie' after the 8 minute mark and especially in the gentler bonus track, 'La Ballerina', a nice and almost traditional-sounding song, perfectly pleasant with pretty guitar harmonics but completely at odds with the rest of the album.

Overall a mixed album in both quality and design- clever and intricate at points and with moments of great cohesion and occasional clarity, but I think you'd need to be off your meds for a while to think you were appreciating it fully!