NEW DREAMS.. NEW HOPES

Timeline were formed in 2006 in the province of Bergamo on the initiative of Davide Tasca and Claudio Albergoni. The name of the band refers to a famous novel by Michael Crichton were the borders between past and present get blurred and their dream was to start a new creative experience composing original music influenced by progressive rock and metal. After a demo in 2009 and a good live activity on the local scene, in 2013 they self released an interesting d'but album titled New Dreams... New Hopes with a line up featuring Claudio Albergoni (guitar), Davide Tasca (bass), Daniele Cattaneo (keyboards), Stefano Bruzzi (drums) and Maurizio Jacopo Andriolo (vocals). The result of their efforts is a good mix of influences ranging from the classic masters of prog from the seventies to newer bands with a sharper edge.

The nice opener 'The Birth Of Man' is a long, complex suite divided into three parts. It's sung in English and the music and lyrics deal with environmental issues depicting in a visionary way the evolution of humankind. It begins with The Creation Of The Earth, an instrumental part featuring an excellent interaction between keyboards and guitars that leads to the middle section, Mother Gaia, where the Earth appears like a beautiful, colourful entity from space, queen of the world. On account of her boredom she gives birth to Man. The final part, The Human Singularity, tells about the evolution of humankind: from ape to man, from fire to writing... But things go wrong and men, blinded by greediness and power end up tearing apart their creator.

'La mia falsa guida' (My false guide) is a short track sung in Italian that describes a metaphoric journey through Hell. There are some references to Dante Alighieri and his Divine Comedy but there's no dark wood here and this Hell is real, it's just ordinary life on Earth. The protagonist gets lost and there's no Virgil to lead him along his journey to the centre of a hell that is wilder and deeper than you can imagine... 'Where is my guide? She is invisible / The more I look for her the more I feel her glance distant from me...'.

'Wret2' is a dark instrumental full of energy that leads to the following 'Searching The Precious Smile', a track featuring sharp guitar riffs and metal influences. It describes in music and words a frenzied, nervous quest through the streets of a big city for the most precious treasure... a smile! Then comes the reflective 'Moments Of Life', a kind of short mini suite divided into five parts where the mind flies through forgotten memories and the past emerges from some old pictures.

The long, complex 'Un gioco di fiducia' (A play of trust) is my favourite track on the album. It's a beautiful suite sung in Italian and divided into four parts that in some way tells about the thaumaturgic power of friendship and trust, a power that can save you from the threatening, raging seas of life that can submerge you and hurt you so bad to transform you in a solitary castaway. In my opinion it's a real pity that the band didn't exploit more their native language since the vocalist seems more at ease when singing in Italian and the poetical, evocative force of the lyrics here is stronger than ever.

Then comes the anti-militaristic 'Wake up... New Black Dawn' that is divided into two parts. The first part is full of positive energy and describes a new day under the sky of freedom while the second part is darker and depicts a new, gloomy day where the masters of war rule and you're living a nightmare under a bloody sky of slavery and contempt. The conclusive track, 'The Way Of Respect', is in the same mood and tells in music and lyrics the feelings of a men who was injured during a bomb attack where a girl got killed.

On the whole, I think that this work is really worth listening to and that Timeline have a good potential. Anyway, you can legally download the album and the nice booklet from the official website: so, have a try and judge by yourselves!