LOGOS

Giorgio Cesare Neri is an Italian prog artist from Genoa, a composer and multi instrumentalist that in the past worked mainly on soundtracks for theatre plays. "Logos", released in 2009 for the independent label Black Widow, is his debut album. Giorgio Cesare Neri composed, arranged and recorded this work in his home studio playing electric and acoustic guitars, bass, mandola, dulcimer piano, keybords, sequencer, flute and percussion. Some guests musicians like Roberto Maragliano (drums), Giuseppe Alvaro (vocals), Gian Castello (flute), Roberto Tiranti (vocals) and Vittorio Ristagno (recitative vocals) contributed to enrich the sound. The result is excellent and the album is really worth listen to.

"Logos" is conceived as a spiritual path, from birth to the final curtain of death, passing through life with sudden bursts of energy, cosmic rides, broken hopes, melancholic feelings, split ups, dreams, wars and moments of joy and quiet. Spacey guitars and keyboards can melt in a catholic mass from where soars a prayer in Latin, like in "Id & Trad", identity and tradition. Frenzy rhythms with electric guitar and keyboards in the forefront can give way to quiet and reflexive passages where recitative vocals quote Plato or Nietzsche... The spiritual and musical world of Giorgio Ceasare Neri is full of vitality and surprises, with sudden changes of mood and atmosphere, from mystic ragas to proud marching beats, from psychedelic guitar solos to dramatic and delicate piano passages

My favourite tracks are "Tuona il cannone", a beautiful song about the absurdity of war and false morality featuring lyrics and lead vocals by Giuseppe Alvaro, where Italian melody is blended with Celtic influences, and the long and complex instrumental "L'ultima danza" (The Last Dance"), where you can find some echoes of PFM. Anyway the album doesn't have really weak moments and the music flows fluently for more than 50 minutes without falls of tension.