MOTHER AND FAIRY

In 1995 Mellow Records released Prowlers' second album ''Mother and fairy'', actually a 2-CD prog output.Was the band so prolific to write and perform over 2 hours of music just after a year from the ''Morgana'' release?Apparently not, and the liner notes take the listener back to 1992/93, at some point Alfio Costa's brother Flavio had joined the band for the recordings of the first CD titled ''Mother''.A year later Stefano Piazzi had quit from his activities and Flavio Costa was the only remaining member to handle the guitars.During the second half of 94' the remaining quintet recorded a full-hour of music, presented in the album as the ''Fairy'' CD.

Prowlers' remain one of the oddest bands to come out from Italy during the 90's.They sure had this familiar Italian taste of romantic arrangements and symphonic underlines in their music, but their execution was definitely darker than more of the period Italian groups.''Mother'' continues from where we left the band in ''Morgana'', the music is somewhere on the line between Neo/Symphonic Prog and retro Psychedelic Rock, featuring lots of nostalgic organ, sinister synth experiments, poetic female vocals but also some heavier symphonic parts and more contemporary Neo Prog qualities in the more melodic parts.Consider this as a modern version of the French CATHARSIS or even GOBLIN minus the jazzy influences, the material is fairly-organ driven with piano and electric guitars support and some synth bursts here and there, again performed in slow-tempo arrangements, which are quite long and full of instrumental passages.One year later Prowlers had made a slight turn towards a more conventional Neo/Symphonic Prog sound, as revealed in the work on ''Fairy''.The tracks are still lengthy with extended instrumental interludes, but the music has become slightly more refined and a bit faster with more pronounced use of synths, while a few tracks contain beautiful Italian lyrics.To my ears now they sound extremely balanced between Symphonic and Psychedelic Rock, because the psych material wasn't actually gone, and the music is very original, more upbeat and even more convincing, eventually featuring strong tempo and stylistical variations in a very genuine form.What hasn't actually changed at all is the lust for a muddy, vintage production.

An EARTH & FIRE meet CATHARSIS kind of album.While not all tracks are succesful in composing terms, which is pretty reasonable for a 2-hour album, this work is usually intelligent, very atmospheric and musically flexible to satisfy fans of old or new Prog, symphomaniacs and lovers of darker listenings.Strongly recommended...3.5 stars.