GIO GENTILE

Gio Gentile is an unknown musician even in his home country Italy. He release under his name two albums, the second offer being from 2009 named Atlantide. Well, the music is something between jazz fusion and prog rock, no sp[ectacular moments here, but fairly decent work in the end. He is the guitar player and have some good moments here, jazz fusion chops with progressive passages , well performed but far from excellent, the arrangements have a mediterrenean feel overall. Pieces like Leukos, Anime or Utopeace featuring italian keyboard player Joe Amoruso known specially from band Luna are more then ok tunes where Gentile's guitar done a good job. The rest of the musicians are invited guests. So, for Atlantide 3 stars, ok release, good, but nothing really special.

Lightweight and somewhat dated.

The profusion of Italian artists is almost bewildering and hard to keep track of. What a fortunate nation to have had the resources to record just about any effort from anyone who could play a few notes! I am in the (intermittent) process of randomly evaluating my somewhat excessive Italian library of albums. Some works are cherished, others will go up on Ebay.

As the name Gio GENTLE appropriately suggest it's indeed rather gentle music. Some pleasant plucking on the guitar without any hint of fireworks, or stressful showing off. Just carefree, laid back plucking supported well by equally decent musicians.

The music conjures images of a garden party where friends are suitably amused by the effort, while the children are peacefully asleep upstairs. Or a scenario where you happen to drop in on friends when they are having a bit of fun, bordering on amateurish boundaries - either way.

Nice work nevertheless, more suited as for inoffensive background music that could be left on repeat all day, than a serious contender for Desert Island selection.

Hovering around the 3 mark, but the reality is that I won't really miss it.