FORSE LE LUCCIOLE NON SI AMANO PIÙ

I like my progressive rock to include a generous leavening of beauty along with the pomp and grandeur which (for me) typify the genre, and Locanda Della Fate's FORSE LE LUCCIOLE NON SI AMANO PIU delivers the desired goods in spades. There is pleasure aplenty to be found on this fine 1977 disc, with some lovely piano, restrained keyboards, flute and passionate (Italian) vocals. There is also power here, but it is an understated and dignified power. The guitars sing, rather than scream, and if the drums were punctuation marks, they'd be commas, dashes, brackets and periods, rather than exclamation marks. This pretty music -- a bit reminiscent of PFM -- does not need to "seize you by the throat" or beat you over the head with self-important, pretentious bombast, but urges you to lay back, relax, and let the soothing sounds and melodies permeate your soul, restoring you to a place of peace and calm. This is great music for early mornings, late nights, reading, and loving!

As my fellow reviewer Maani noted, there are some recurring musical motifs to be found here, but if baroque and classical greats such as Handel, Beethoven and Tchaikovsky saw fit to employ such techniques in their timeless compositions, who am I to quibble? (If anything, I find that the sparingly-repeated themes lend this album a certain unity and cohesion.)

Thus, after rocking out to the heavy, room-shaking strains of latter-day Crimson or Dream Theater, you may want to rest your head, and "lend an ear" to something much more subtle. If you don't shy away from beauty in your music, FORSE LE LUCCIOLE NON SI AMANO PIU would be a terrific addition to your prog collection. No, it's not ground-breaking or earth-shaking, but it is nice -- very, very nice!