LE PORTE DEL DOMANI

Every other song is a ballad. La Maschera di cera is one of my favorite bands among the 'newer' ones, and they play symphonic rock in the classic Italian tradition with plenty of melody, tempo changes, and unique elements. This album differs somewhat from their previous work as they seem to have an idea for a concept loosely connected to Le Orme's "Felona e Sorona," or rather, the album is supposedly seen as a sequel. It is not. The album is very scattered, and I miss a cohesive thread. As usual, there is a lot of good here, but the album falls short due to its inconsistency. Of the album's nine tracks, five are more or less ballads, or at least calm songs with vocals accompanied by acoustic guitar or piano. In between, they insert a couple of rockier tracks to keep the album's tempo from stalling completely.

Here are my objections to the album: if we're going to listen to tear-jerking romantic ballads with a lot of heart and pain, I am not the target audience. Don't get me wrong, the songs are good, and the singer performs perfectly. After half the song, the whole group kicks in with the full arsenal of Mellotron and keyboards, and not a dry eye remains. But that's not why I listen to La Maschera di cera, to hear romantic ballads, at least not in five out of nine songs. Historically, the band is at their best when they blend Italian romanticism into their music and write well-balanced progressive rock, where they throw in a melodic tear-jerking ending with the singer performing as if his life depends on it. Here, they have cut it out into separate pieces, and I might as well listen to Adele.

The other problem I find with the album is that the rockier songs lack a cohesive thread. They often start impressively only to become sloppy and unfocused. Take the sixth song, for example. It starts off great, then comes an entirely unfocused part for a few minutes until it rocks a bit again, followed by a pretty good vocal part, and then the song ends. I get no sense of coherence, and it feels more like they have stacked a few parts together and called it good. There is really only one song that resembles their previous way of composing music, and that is the first track. After that, it's mostly ballads and unfocused rock songs without direction. The connection to Le Orme is heard woven into the first and last tracks where they play pieces from "Felona e Sorona," but otherwise, I find it hard to see the connection.

The band's weakest album to date, even though there are many good parts on it. I was very excited about this album since Le Orme is one of my favorite bands. What could go wrong then? Apparently, quite a bit. It's not a bad album, but I have high expectations for this group considering the level they can achieve, as shown on their previous albums. This doesn't feel entirely thought out. I've tried to like this album since it was released, and now, more than ten years later as I write this, I realize that this particular album will never become a favorite of mine.

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