NUDO

It appears that from the 90s onwards, BMS (or just Banco, whichever they call themselves these days) has been preoccupied with rehashing their past glories: re-recording their classics, releasing compilations, live albums, etc. The most significant of those, I'd say, was "Nudo", a two-CD album with both studio material and live recordings.

Disc 1 begins with "Nudo", a new, three-part composition which goes to show that, unfortunately, Banco is still very much into mainstream music. While it's a considerably modernized (and even "metallized" in places) version of what the band did in the 80s, it's hardly better, as the intricate riffs and sweet melodies BMS are best known for are nowhere to be found. Fortunately, the rest of disc 1 consists of mostly unplugged (I detected a little bit of synth work here and there) versions of the band's early classics, as well as some more recent songs. More interestingly, these recordings feature no drums or percussion whatsoever; while this isn't much of a problem with "E mi viene da pensare" or "750.000 anni fa ... l'amore?", which in their original version featured a minimal amount of drums and electronic instruments anyway; however, on tracks like "RIP or "il Ragno, which require a much more rhythmic approach, the band substitutes drums with energetic, often percussive guitar strumming, and this does the trick most of the time. The one track I was disappointed with is "L'evoluzione", mainly because it focuses almost entirely on the "ragtime" part of the song, while ignoring it's best moments.

Moving on to disc 2: and the setlist doesn't excite me much as none of my personal BMS favorites are included, and I'm generally not a big fan of live albums anyway, but this is one fine concert! "Metamorfosi" is certainly the best version of the composition I've heard anyway. Also of interest is the fact that the there are actually some \m/ METAL\m/ influences here as well. These aren't at all prominent, mind you, but if you listen closely to track 2 you'll hear heavy guitar chugging that seems to have come straight from a Dream Theater album; the drumming also reflects these influences a bit. I assume this comes from the younger members of the band.

Thus, not a bad release at all. While a bit short of "Excellent", it deserves a solid 3.5 stars.