ALTARE THOTEMICO

This album is a typical case of how it can go wrong when the press release insists on making analogy with such BIIIG names as Area and even worst boost the young keyboardist's playing as if it came from Patrizio Fariselli's chest. I also read here people comparing them to Area!?! Well either they pasted what they read in the press release or I'd really like to hear (contact me privately) WHERE they heard this! The only place where there's a twinkle of the eye to Area is on track 3 at about 4' ... and they show such a bad taste in repeating it so many times (like hey did you get it ... did you get it ... ?) that it loses its reason to be! Those guys are not even reaching the lowest part of Area's feet!

Now, what about this band? It is in many aspects SO banal!! They have maybe some ideas that could make a good tune but they don't exploit them efficiently; bad timing, trivial drumming sticking to simple patterns, riffs that stay for ever without getting that f... airplane to fly way up, musical harmonic understanding restricted to the basics, use of worn out clichés in the soloing (simple blues stuff heard by thousand of other bands in exactly the same way), especially noticeable on keyboards .... yeah .... the young hero presented as the reincarnation of Patrizio! Most of the soloing sounds like a jam where the soloists don't know what to say but keep playing until they find out it's better to go back to the cue!

Honestly, I don't dig that people may rate *this* 4 stars! It's one here ..... and I would make it 0,5 if I could! Everything is so average and even under! The only good side to me is the singing! Good powerful voice with guts but here again, there's too big a misbalance between the vocals and the music; the music doesn't back the singer - when he's left in front for some narrating evil speaking, you hear nearly nothing in the background, they kind of freeze and it gets really too much! - and vice versa! It does NOT function good enough. I don't doubt the band may improve in the future (if there is one) but this first outcast is not convincing and actually boring at the end! Of course, my 25 cents, based anyway on more than 30 years playing and listening.

This is not new but it gives me the possibility of reminding you of this: beware the press release adds! They very seldom match reality and try to sell you something by triggering on wide emotionally appealing key words that most of the time are misused!