RA ME NIVAR

Formed in the southern coastal city of Sapri, Italy, MOBIUS PROJECT began as far back as 2005 with the consistent lineup of Massimiliano Amato (guitar, vocals), Lucio Filizola (guitar, sitar, keyboards, vocals), Tony Guerrieri (bass) and Francesco Magaldi (drums, percussion) but in its near two decade existence has thus far only released this one rather short album titled RA ME NIVAR in 2014. While the album features five tracks including the three-piece closer "L'equilibrista," the album only barely exceeds the 32 minute mark which for a modern Italian progressive rock album is more like a mere EP than a proper album's worth of material.

Nevertheless MOBIUS PROJECT named after the famous Möbius strip in mathematics, delivered a rather authentic modern release of Italian prog coming a long way from their humble origins of covering classics from bands like Led Zeppelin, King Crimson and Deep Purple. The band explains on its Bandcamp site that the title RA ME NIVAR comes from a fictional African language that was presented in the book "Oceano Mare" and means "flying man," so it seems the theme of the album is to overcome challenges perhaps so one can earn their wings? Only a guess since the concept is nebulous at best and lyrics are totally in Italian. The exception is the track "Entanglementalistically Speaking" which is presented in English.

While the title track starts off as a fairly standard sounding rock song with focus on guitar, bass and drums, the album is filled with interesting keyboard work, eerie atmospheres, intricate percussive drive and non-standard compositional flow. The band exhibits a fair amount of creativity in how it ties everything together and offers exotic sounds in the form of the occasional sitar appearance. The album is actually quite eclectic with rock guitars commingling with virtuoso piano runs and the occasional excursion into a jazzy sequence.

Essentially the sound of MOBIUS PROJECT is based on the classic symphonic Italian prog sounds of the decades prior with a bit more license to explore. This is an album i would love to like more but to my ears it seems pretty substandard and even amateurish in too many ways. Guitar riffs are basic, melodies while pleasant never go the extra mile to really suck you in and although there are two lead vocalists, Lucio Filizola and Massimiliano Amato sharing the lyrical delivery, neither one really has a fantastic range which this sort of epic music requires. In short there are many great ideas presented on RA ME NIVAR but not executed in a way that takes things to that next level that blow me away.

Considering this is a debut it's not a bad start but the band seems to have disappeared from the scene after this one release that has become somewhat of a rarity and most easily attained digitally. While i admire the dedication into making the album sound different than the average Italian prog of the 21st century, in the end it just doesn't seem adequately performed and a little haphazardly pieced together. A band that shows great promise but it seems after nearly a decade that perhaps this was a one-off never to be repeated. Whatever the case, an interesting modern take on RPI from a region of Italy where very little in terms of progressive rock has emerged.