FORMULA 3

The second eponymous album by Formula 3 was released in 1971 on the Numero Uno label with a confirmed line up featuring Tony Cicco (drums, percussion, vocals), Gabriele Lorenzi (keyboards, vocals) and Alberto Radius (guitars, vocals). As its predecessor, the album was produced by Lucio Battisti but this time all the songs were signed Battisti-Mogol and interpreted by the band whose creativity was in some way limited. The overall sound mainly draws on psychedelic rock and Italian melody but the result is a far cry from the "Italian prog" of other groups of the same period, with simpler structures, lighter lyrical content and less adventurous solutions...

The long opener "Nessuno nessuno" (No one no one) is a good piece blending hard rock, psychedelia and Italian melody. The music and lyrics evoke a foggy motorway landscape... The protagonist is driving his car and the visibility is scarce, every now and again he can see the lights of other cars coming from behind and surpassing him, then vanishing into the white... He stops for fuel at a service station, pays and resume his journey through the Po Valley feeling lonely and sad...

"Tu sei bianca, sei rosa, mi perderò" (You are white, you are pink, I'll get lost) is a straightforward rock blues piece with a nice organ work and lyrics about an irrepressible, haunting passion. A man is trying and trying again to get the woman he desires and who is driving him mad...

The melancholic "Vendo casa" (I'm selling my house) depicts a desperate man in a house that is a mess, a man who is crossing e period of deep crises on the account of a broken relationship while the following "Eppur mi son scordato di te" (And yet I've forgotten you) is a carefree song that was very successful as a single and that tells of a man cheating on a woman and when caught desperately tries to find a justification for what he defines just a game, a distraction...

The weak "Un papavero" (A poppy) depicts a beautiful, independent girl who takes each day as it comes and whose romances do not last long, like a flower, a beautiful poppy... Then comes "Il vento" (The wind) that tells of a man who wakes up early to steal out of his house and escape from a relationship that for him is over. He feels that when the wind begins to blow you can't stop it, so he's leaving his woman and his past behind him with a pinch of regret but determined to search for new adventures...

"Mi chiamo Antonio Tal dei Tali e lavoro ai mercati generali" (My name is Antonio So and So and I work at the general markets) ends the album with a rock blues flavour that every now and again could recall Bob Dylan and Jimi Hendrix. It tells of a man who works hard at the general markets unloading boxes of fruits in the rain and when he comes back home finds out that his woman denies him any solace...

On the whole, a good collection of more or less simple rock songs but not essential in a prog collection.