MALEDETTI

Maledetti is decisively more funky and happy then the previous Area albums. It's the fourth album in a row filled with stellar musicianship, but it has sacrificed some of the dark power that made me love the preceding albums so much.

After a poetic start on Evaporazione, Diforisma Urbano finds Area in a surprisingly upbeat funk fusion mood. It's a pleasant track but certainly not the best I have heard in this style. Mahavishnu's Visions of the Emerald Beyond for instance has much better tracks in this style. Gerontocrazia takes a good 3 minutes till it gets going. The vocal and Arabian flavoured section that follows is great but doesn't measure up to similar snake charming excursions on the previous albums. The band's playing and the synth usage in particular is great, but as a whole it fails to surprise.

Scum features a rhythmic pulse that brings it close to zeuhl, RIO and other rock forms that take the wild rhythmic dynamics of Stravinsky as an example. It has some great fretless bass work and wild free jazz experimentation. It ends with another poem accompanied by space noises. Il Massacro is a classical chamber orchestra piece that gets a slightly punkish/noisy treat from Area but it is rather pointless really.

On Giro Giro Tondo, Area gets back on track with their typical blend of avant-garde, emotional vocals and intense jazz-rock. Caos is chaotic indeed, it's a rowdy slab of vocal and instrumental experimentation that must have been tremendous fun to do because, dense as it is, it still manages to convey their wilful enthusiasm.

For people that followed Area from the beginning, this album may not offer many new thrills, and it sure lists as the lesser of the first 4 albums for me. Still it is a strong album on its own and Frank Zappa fans that haven't tried Area yet might take this album as a starting point. 3.5 stars.