EVOLUTIVE SONGS

Four years after From Heaven to the Stars, Gepetto return with yet more symphonic splendour. In truth, I am not the least precious about my musical preferences and am perfectly happy to enjoy endless slices of neo-prog by numbers...as long as the numbers add up. And here, for the most part, they do. This said, starting Evolutive Songs off with its two least impressive tracks seems an odd choice (to me), with the chronically off-key vocals in "In Your Mind" being particularly distracting. However, the closing four tracks are totally majestic - all in all, very reminiscent of Red Sand (which can't be bad). In particular, the 15 minute closer, "Mille Cordes", is quite magnificent - transports you to another sphere altogether.

If you could ditch "Tu" and "Always" from the first CD and amalgamate what's left with the final four tracks off this one, you would end up, collectively, with nearly 80 minutes of great listening. Sweeping guitars, key-drenched melodies, pulsating rhythms, recurring changes in time structure - as I said, neo-prog by numbers....and I for one would love each and every minute.

Thanks, as ever, to PA for giving me exposure to yet another unheralded band. Great stuff.