DISCENDENZE

I can just fully confirm how the music of ANCESTRY is descibed in the band's bio. It's highly symphonic and mellow, very much in vein of 70's Italian Prog with some YES ressemblance especially on this record here. Vocals in italian by Fabrizio Sicuteri and Fabio Venturini are excellent and very pleasant.

First track is the 17 minutes long suite "I Colori dell' età Sorgente" which is divided into 5 parts and the first highlight of the album. Slower parts are alternating with more up-tempo ones but the music keeps all the times its mellow and harmonic mood without never becoming bombastic in any way. They are using mainly natural keyboard sounds, lots of piano and synthetic "squeezy" ones are fortunately mostly avoided. Unlike with many other bands doing mellow symphonic rock their music never becomes cheesy or boring at any moment.

"Nuova Opera" is a more up-tempo track with excellent playing on keyboards and guitar and harmonic vocals as before. Since there are many breaks and shifts present the song is very interesting listen and after it has finished one thinks it was much too short.

Edited 09/27/05!

Although "Stanza Della Terra" is a bit slower one it's nevertheless not less interesting with beautiful vocal lines and great piano play, as well bass play is very good.

Next track "Oasi" is an instrumental one with kind of "wordless vocals" reminiscent to some ethnic popular music. Possibly the weakest track of the album IMHO, although still a nice listen reminding a bit to later CAMEL records.

In the beginning of "Labirinto" there is some narration spoken by Lorenzo Costa accompagnied by mellow piano and keyboards. Then guitar is coming in together with ongoing romantic piano play before the narration is continued.

The piano theme is repeated in the opening of the final long track "Verso l'Esterno" which is the second highlight of the album. This one has some very nice and melodic guitar and keyboard solos. The vocals here are again really awesome.

CONCLUSION

Discendenze is a very good album by this newer italian band and an excellent recommendation for all those fellows who prefer their prog to be mellow and melodic without being boring. Those who need more power will probably miss something here. Fans of YES, GENESIS,CAMEL, PFM, LE ORME or any NEOPROG band will love it. Not really an essential one in prog general I guess but worth 3,5 stars!