DIARIO DI VIAGGIO DELLA FESTA MOBILE

"Diario di Viaggio della Festa Mobile" is one of those big surprises that give joy to prog collectors and confirm their sense of purpose. Festa Mobile, the band in charge of this little hidden gem from Italy's prog rock history, was a relatively mysterious band from which Il Baricentro will emerge a few years later in order to enrich the jazz-oriented area of the genre. But for now, Festa Mobile is an excellent symphonic rock ensemble with a typical Italian flavor based on that special feel in melody and mood that Italy seems to own exclusively. 'La Corte di Hon' starts with what seem to be dual piano interplaying through frantic arpeggios, with crystal clear classicist intentions. Right from this starting point you can tell that Festa Mobile's symphonic progressive style feels like a middle term between L'Uovo di Colombo and Biglietto per l'Inferno: anyway, Festa Mobile equals the former's refinement but surpasses it concerning energy and melodic creativity, and that is where Festa Mobile somewhat leans closer to the rough dramatics of the latter's. at the time when the guitar solo gets in, it really has to make an extra effort to make itself noticed among the framework already filled by the energetic keyboard deliveries and the drummer's powerful drive. 'Canto' kicks off with an ethereal prelude, but it won't take long before the main body arrives to display a mixture of symphonic-oriented melodic sense and jazzy swings; ultimately, the prologue is reprised for the brief epilogue. 'Aristea' has a ballad- oriented main motif, which is an occasion for the band to explore its softer die - after arriving at the 3 minute mark, the track shifts toward a jazz-rock elaboration that spices things up in order to build up on a sort of extroverted climax. All in all, the explosive potential of this exciting section is regrettably interrupted by the fade-out, which in my opinion gets in too early; the guitar and piano leads bear a distinct promise of a big finale, but it's not going to happen (this is actually a minor objection that can be applied to most tracks in this album). 'Ljalja' starts the album's second half, starting with explosive piano arpeggios (not precisely a big surprise at this point). At first, the track's scheme seems quite related to that of the first song, but soon it becomes clear that the band is headlong for a more elaborated development of the musical ideas that go on appearing. The Manierist emotion delivered by the lead vocalist and completed by the stylish keyboard arrangements seem to anticipate the sort of moods that will be prevalent a few years later in albums by Corte dei Miracoli and Apoteosi. 'Ritorno', the closing track, actually digs deeper into this symphonic trend, stating an excellent combination of romanticism and extroverted dynamics: as usual, the instrumental deliveries are impeccable and the ensemble's work is spotless, with a clever use of moods that ultimately leads to a dreamy finale. Now. that's the sort of finale that I had dreamt of for some of the album's previous tracks. These last two tracks are, in my opinion, the best ones in the album since they manage to give room to the motifs to endure as they should, in this way providing a proper completeness to the whole. Well, with only one album Festa Mobile managed to give something really interesting for prog collectors worldwide, all in all, a very typical Italian symphonic rock album.