REBUS

After their excellent debut album 'MisterioseVoci' I was eager to listen to this italian band's second effort 'Rebus'. My veredict is a clear thumbs up, although I must confess that it took me a few more spins than MV to fully appreciate this one. The first thing you notice is a vast improvement in the recording quality, production and attention to detail. And the voice of Luca Pancaldi sounds much better and is now more supported by backing vocals.

The second is an evolution in the sound and style, and this is what took my classic-prog- trained ears a bit longer to digest. The formula keeps similar, trying to find the best balance of classic prog, neo-prog, pop, rock, classical music, jazz and popular music, but the point of balance seems at first to have been a bit shifted towards the pop-rock side and bit less to symphonic prog, classical and jazz. While MisterioseVoci was closer to the classic prog sound, with a lot of acoustic piano, rhodes, hammond and moog sounds, and natural bass and drums, Rebus sounds much more modern, with a much wider palette of synth sounds, the bass and drums sound more processed, and in general closer to standard neo-prog sound.

While I found MV difficult to compare to other main prog bands, at the first couple of listens of Rebus things that crossed my mind included modern Yes (Magnification etc), GTR, 3 To the Power of Three, modern ELP, the good Asia tracks and the likes. This took me a bit off guard and for some moments I found myself thinking 'mmm, a bit too modern for me' (yes I know these albums are not that modern anymore, but you know what I mean). However MV had already taught me that these guys are somewhat subtle in displaying their talent so I gave it more spins and I finally got it and I have come to really enjoy this album, and it's certainly better than many of the references I mentioned.

Band leader Luca Zabbini does not sound so much like Keith Emerson anymore, he is finding his own style but sure enough he shows once again his amazing skills. They have now a full-time guitar player Max Scarcia who does a good job although the music is still mostly centered on the fantastic keyboards. There are 2 tracks sung in english (plus one Easter Egg) and a single-like track, which seems to indicate that they aim to a wider audience.

The album opens with a ghost of the melody from the last track Nostradamus, quickly stepping into the fast beat of 'La Corsa Elettronica' (The Electronic Race). A very modern sounding prog tune which especially in its second half reminds me a bit of modern Yes.

'Don Giovanni' is an excellent and quite original track which could be defined as 'Mozart meets Queen', with a purely classical-based verse and chorus and some Bohemian Rhapsody-like vocals and guitar.

'Save your soul' combines seemingly incompatible styles, starting with a tune which will remind us of central-european gipsy music to suddenly change into fast rock, followed by typical prog synth solo lines and closing again with the gipsy theme. It seemed a bit forced in the beginning but after a while I got its point.

'Akery' is one of the best picks, a wonderful track with great dynamics, starting with soft piano to gradually increase the intensity and without knowing how you got there you are listening to fast rock, and then to mid-tempo prog. Great song

'Polvere di stelle' (Stardust) could be a single, it has a very pop and catchy verse-chorus but the instrumental work is great and more prog than it seems at first.

'Duellum' (Duel) is the most Emersonian track, could well have been in some of the modern ELP albums (of which would have been probably the best song), an amazing display of keyboard work and another of the best picks.

'My enemy' is mostly a rock song, the weakest in the album.

'Veleno' (Poison) is the track which sounds most like their first album MV, again with great dynamics combining prog-jazz-pop, an instrumental phrasing in phrygian scale which gives it an andalusian feeling, and a beautiful soft middle segment. Another best pick.

'Orione' (obviously enough, Orion) is mostly standard neo-prog, something that would not have felt much out of place in one of the first Arena albums.

'Nostradamus' is officially the last track, based on frantic drums, something as if you tried to put music to one of the drum duet solos of Phill Collins and Chester Thompson, it took me a while to get it but now I find it a very good and original track. The song ends at 5:00 min, but the counter on the player shows that track 10 lasts 11:20, betraying that there's something more to come. Indeed after 3 minutes of silence we get an unnamed Easter Egg in the form of a soft ballad which while not being very prog by itself is nice and not much different from, say, some of the soft fragments of Jethro Tull.

A very good album which due to the modernized style compared to MV took me a bit longer to get into, but still a great work and much improved in many respects compared to their debut. Best picks for my taste 'Don Giovanni', 'Akery', 'Duellum', 'Veleno' and 'Nostradamus'.

Barock Project is an Italian band that have released five studio-albums (between 2007 and 2017) and one live CD entitled Vivo (from 2016). The musical Brainchild is Luca Zabbini (composer, keyboards and piano), he likes play with a huge variety, from classical to rock and jazz.

On their debut album entitled Misteriose Voci (2007) Barock Project delivered strong Italian vocals (with a very pleasant emotional undertone), an accessible and melodic sound (loaded with the distinctive Hammond organ) and a tasteful colouring and strong interplay by guitar and keyboards. The more mellow parts with twanging acoustic guitar and good vocals Barock Project reminded me of Angelo Branduardi. In the more symphonic rock interludes with omnipresent vintage keyboards I noticed strong elements of Dutch keyboard driven pride Trace.

These elements we can enjoy even better on the more elaborate and captivating second effort entitled Rebus (featuring guitarist Max Scarcia).

The ten compositions (running time around 70 minutes) are loaded with variation, strong musical ideas and outstanding work on guitar and keyboards. The element rock we can trace in the track Enemy (blended with prog metal and a biting guitar solo) and in some songs in which the rock has strong classical undertones (indeed , Barock rocks!) like Don Giovanni (rock opera vocals, orchestral keyboards and a fiery wah-wah solo) and Duellum featuring a wonderful Minimoog and Hammond sound along a swinging piano solo.

Then the tracks Polvere Di Stelle (fine swinging bass) and Veleno (captivating electric guitar solo with a Spanish flavor) that remind me of Al DiMeola his excellent jazzrock (Elegant Gypsy-era) with exciting interplay, especially the interaction between the guitar and kebyoards is sensational! Next 24-carat symphonic rock (with hints of 76-77 Genesis) in the Corsa Elettronica, Akery (wonderful vintage keyboards sound) and the first part of Veleno (beautiful howling guitar runs).

Finally I would like to mention the musical surprises in Save Your Soul (Jethro Tull-like flute traverse, Minimoog runs like Celebration from PFM and folky piano evoking the Balkan sound) and the PFM-like conclusion of Nostradamus featuring dreamy flute, acoustic guitar and warm English vocals.

I had to get used to the huge variation but in the end I am delighted about this second Barock Project album!