L'UOMO

This album was very much built up for me when i first listened to it, Osanna having been a very hot topic in the RPI section. From what i had heard i was expecting jazz fusion with some heavier sections. The Guitar playing through this album was the first thing that caught my attention, very Ritchie Blackmore-esque at times and also offering some nice acoustic guitar patterns throughout the record. There is also some interesting Jazz Flute passages which drive the more Jazz oriented moments of the album.

This is what i got for the first few tracks, during which time the album is very intriguing and enjoyable with flute and distorted guitar passages reminiscent of early Jethro Tull. The first 2 tracks offer some of the most experimental parts of the album with a fantastic bombastic noise passage at the start of Introduzione segueing into a scat flute passage. The title song L'uomo also features some experimental instrument and vocal sounds and more great electric guitar playing accompanied by a great acoustic guitar part.

After this the album begins to suffer from split personality dissorder. Heavier songs begin to build up, beginning with Mirror Train a heavy song that features a very interesting Jazz solo section, and the music begins to sound like early Deep Purple with bluesy afflictions to the music and less flute parts in the music. This then turns into more acoustic passages and by the last 3 tracks of the album it is sounding like 60's rock n roll.

Genre transcendence is always a great feature of a prog album but here it is often distracting especially with the way most of the songs lead into each other this amount of musical epilepsy spoils the feel of the album.

This is Osanna's first album so such a wide range of ideas incorporated into the sound is understandable and later records are definitely more professional than this interesting, slightly Avant Garde but forgettable first effort.

A good and interesting album but not an essential listen for Osanna, the full Osanna experience is offered on the Palepoli record so for those who only need one record from this great band, definitely go for that. A 3 star record on further listens.