JESAHEL (UNA STORIA LUNGA 20 ANNI)

"Jesahel - Un viaggio lungo 20 anni" should probably be considered an official studio album by Delirium but reading the book by Mauro La Luce that is dedicated to the history of the band (Il lungo viaggio, Zona Music Books, 2018) I noticed that he even omitted to name it. It's not because of inaccuracy, the omission was deliberated. It's a fact that many prog sites do not list it at all or consider this work just a compilation album... Of course, it's not an essential album for a progressive rock fan, but why deny its existence? Why the band disown it?

The album was originally released in 1996 on NAR Records and later re-released with a different cover and a different title (Delirium, 2004, NAR International 11404-2). The line up here features three historic members of the band: Rino Dimopoli (vocals, keyboards), Pino Di Santo (vocals, drums) and Marcello Reale (vocals, bass). During the recording sessions they were helped by Alberto Radius (guitars), Stefano Previsti (keyboards), Andrea Bianchi (sax), Claudio Alifranchini (flute) and Alfredo Golino (drums). Together they re-recorded, with the new arrangements by Alberto Radius and Stefano Previsti, five tracks from the early seventies: two from the debut album "Dolce acqua" ("Dolce acqua" and "Favola o storia del lago di Kriss") and three from singles of the same period ("Jesahel", "Haum" and "Canto di Osanna"). The other pieces are brand new songs, four signed by Dimopoli - Di Santo - Reale ("Jerico", "Signora della notte", "Musicalità" and "Più tempo per sognare") and one by Dimopoli - Cassella ("Sola"). The focus is all on the pop side of Delirium's repertoire and prog fans would be deeply disappointed by the result. The new versions of the old tracks miss the charm of Ivano Fossati's vocals and the energy of the originals while the new tracks are just melodic pop songs...

Probably the release of this album in 1996 was just an attempt to put the band together after many years of inactivity and a way to try to have a new go but the project was ephemeral and this line up did not last long. As I said before, despite the great competence of the musicians involved, this is not a great album and for sure is not a progressive rock one. Nonetheless, it exists and apparently there would be no reason to disown it. Well, probably the problem is that its existence originated the ground for future painful legal issues.

In fact, in 2001, on the initiative of Pino Di Santo, came to life another incarnation of the band, the one that signed a deal with Black Widow Records and released some excellent prog albums such as "Il nome del vento" or "L'era della menzogna". Meanwhile Rino Dimopoli and Marcello Reale persisted in carrying on the melodic flag of the repertoire with new musicians. The branch with Pino Di Santo and other historic members such as Ettore Vigo and Martin Grice in the line up added the words International Progressive Group to the name Delirium while Dimopoli's band was simply called Delirium Project, kept on performing live and in 2016 released an album in a pop rock vein entitled Con i nostri occhi on K1 Records...

For prog fans Delirium IPG are the "real ones", those who really matter but if you are interested in melodic pop and like bands such as I Nomadi...