87/94

As far as I know this Italian band never released a studio album although they did release an EP which featured the 21 minute track "The Feebleminded Man" which is also on this compilation cd. The songs here were composed between 1987 and 1994 as the title suggests. The music reminded me of GENESIS at times and features some beautiful piano playing and melodic guitar.The vocals are in English and are well done.

"Again Autumn" is an instrumental and one of my favourites. We get to hear the heavenly piano playing right away before synths and drums build to a full sound. The guitar joins in and it sounds really good. There is a nice contrast between the mellower piano passages and the more bombastic sections that follow. The frequency of this increases towards the end of the song. If is the most GENESIS-like track on here in my opinion, and it's on this song that we hear vocals for the first time. Some blistering guitar before 3 minutes with an impressive section to follow of different sounds coming and going quickly.

"The Feeble Minded Man" is that 21 minute epic i was talking about earlier. And as much as they offer up twists and turns and shifts in tempo like you would expect on such a long track, this one doesn't hold my attention at all. Sure it has it's moments but i would have prefered more interesting shorter songs. "The Chapter" opens with a fairly heavy 1 1/2 minute intro before it settles down with drums, bass and guitar. The tempo picks up and the piano leads the way. Vocals 4 1/2 minutes in. Guitar and some good drumming before piano ends it. "Riding The Deep" is another instrumental. It is fairly mellow for the first 2 minutes before a full sound with drums and synths lead the way. Nice sound.The contrast continues. "Thinkin' All" ranks right up there with the opening track for me. Vocals and piano get things started but it's the guitar that soars a minute in that I really like as the drums pound away. Synths follow.

Good but not essential by any means. An enjoyable listen though.