L'IDIOTA

There's a fair amount of incoming due from the RPI in the coming weeks, and those people who are keen on the heavy Italian prog rock should definitely have Falena on their radar. The band has been around since 2003 and in fact released their debut album 'Impressioni' (as a Myspace stream) in 2007. While they have hitherto hobnobbed with hard rock, they generally seem to have had a bit of an identity crisis and by their own admission haven't really been able to get a handle on their own sound.

However if the years have been spent trying to harness their individual musical backgrounds (alt-rock, indie, prog) into a coherent whole, with 'L'Idiota' they have a new impetus and those same influences have driven the band to conceive a work that in a trice has seen their name inscribed on RPI. 'L'Idiota' has cut the bindings, Lazarus-like, that previously restrained them from the sight of prog

There's a semblance of a concept too; the album presents a collection of songs that together draw a picture of the follies of human nature - mental disorder, human suffering and other dismal imaginings. This might even be seen as a metaphor for the band itself and that idea of not knowing where they belong, but let's just park that argument and keep the focus of attention on the music.

The nature of the lyrics be as they may, but the band relays these ideas through the medium of great muckle power chords, fire-eater vocals, and a rhythm section that's as tight as a duck's erchie. And with the keyboardist doubling up on flute, there are well-kenned RPI elements enough. By-the-bye, don't be looking to this album for help with your circadian rhythms or sleep disorder; it's a noisy affair so you'll not be needing your jim-jams with this one, that's for certain.

As noted above, things are about as busy as they get in the Villa just now with some devilishly good bands in the pipeline. As a surety, Auld Nick will get frostbite before the RPI juggernaut runs out of hot new bands. Okay, so there aren't pure hundreds of artists being added but Falena is just one of several catechumens that the RPI faithful will want to acquaint themselves with. And in spite of its self- defeating title, 'L'Idiota' is no prog rock folly.