ANTOLOGIA

As you may notice, there are hundreds of excellent bands from Italy that have pleased fans of prog rock and well composed music since the latter 60´s until these days, i could say that i have been in love with Italy´s music since i discovered it, and so far, i haven´t found any "bad" Italian band, of course i love some bands more than other ones, but them all are / were excellent.

This time i am reviewing another great band which unfortunately was a one-shot band as many 70´s Italian bands were; Era di Acquario was the name of a trio of excellent musicians who came from Sicilia if im not wrong, and after having released in 1972 a couple of singles, in 1973 "Antologia" was released as their first and sadly last LP, do not think that the title Antologia measn that this is a compillation because it isnt, it is an studio album.

Now lets talk about the album, i started saying that statement "a short passage of beautiful music" because this album despite featuring 10 tracks, it only lasts 29 minutes, so it is very short to ve considered a "real" prog album, as you can imagine all the songs are very short with a range of 3 minutes average, with this lenght i always remember for instance Goblin´s Profondo Rosso which i consider a masterpiece despite it is also very short, this time "Antologia" is not a masterpiece for me, but it is full of beautiful music indeed.

As i mentioned above, they were a trio, but not as bombastic as ELP, but with a very soft and delicate sound, an exquisite use of flute and acousti guitars with the always particular and recognizable Italian sound. "Campagne Siciliane" is the opener song and it is very beautiful, an instrumental and very melodic song, full of flute and very nice acoustic guitar, it is one of the best songs here. "Paddre Mio" and "Idda" are the follower songs, the first one is a bit rockier with electric guitar, good riffs and again flute, the second is a soft ballad which may reminad you to New Trolls. "Solitudine" is another relaxing song where again acoustic guitars and flute play the lead role, also we can listen to a very soft keyboard sound as a background, it also has nice percussions. "Vento D´Africa" is very similar to the previous one, it gives me a sensation of being lying in the sea, watching the clouds and feeling totally relaxed. "L´Indifferenza" is an excellent song, very Italian so traditional and with great vocals, great atmospheres. "Fuori al Sole" shows the rockier side of Era di Acquario with good guitar riffs but at the same time with the delicate sound of flute, another short instumental song. "Geraldine" was one of those previous singles before Antologia, so i believe in that era this sound was known there, this song features the best vocal performance of this album, reaching high tones, the song itself is simple but pretty nice. "Statale 113" is the song which finishes this nice album, as in the first song, this last song is instrumental with very nice arrangements, it is a catchy tune as the majority of the songs are actually.

I enjoy this album, it is very "easy" to listen so everybody could give it a chance and enjoy it, i like it a lot despite having some simple moments, i could give it 4 stars and recommend it to everyone, but i think i would be fair if i gave it only 3 stars, good but non-essential, since i think it is not a clear example of prog rock, i mean knowing all those Italian masterpieces, this album has nothing to do.

Enjoy it!

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