MICROSTORIE

I have to admit that before listening to this album, I've already been familiar with only one previous effort of the band, highly impressive and well known symphonic prog gem - "Contaminazione". Unfortunately "Microstorie" has nothing to do with that album's style. The new material presented by re-united Il Rovescio Della Medaglia is much more mainstream oriented hard rock/pop-rock with only few heavy prog influences and even less symphonic parts. But is it completely bad? Not really. So let's look to my brief description of songs included on "Microstorie":

1. "Quale Film" - album begins with standard AOR song full of dazzling guitars and brass section. Nothing impressive but not too offensive either. Surprisingly keyboards are usually inaudible here. Overall very "modern" sounding. However I like last few seconds when we can enjoy symphonic orchestral finale.

2. "Se Non Hai" - much harder song with crunching guitar riffs. If not the Italian language I'd easily mistaken them with some Southern hard rock band from Texas! Anyway vocals are quite strange here, mainly half-whispering, low-sounding "talking" instead of real singing, but we also have "normal" refrains here. Not so bad, because I kinda like this repetitive guitar riff here.

3. "Microstorie" - slightly more symphonic sounding piece with acoustic guitar, piano & soft vocals. Saxophone is a nice addition too. Similar to some more pop-oriented ballads recorded in 70s by Le Orme.

4. "Luca's Bar" - one of my favorite tracks on the album but still with no connections to this band's glory past. It's mainly very groovy instrumental blues-rock driven by heavy electric guitar leads & solos, but quirky synthesizers (unfortunately very digital sounding), pianos & some brass sections make it more heavy prog-like.

5. "Cattivi Pensieri" - mainly pop-rock with radio-friendly refrain, string & brass sections & usual harder edged guitar delivery. Unimpressive, however Moog (?) solo in the end reminds about good old 70s symphonic prog in the vain o Rick Wakeman's solo output.

6. "Dimmi Ancora di Si" - another rather typical Italian-style pop-ballad. Nothing to write about.

7. "Tapis Roulant" - only a little more interesting attempt on recording pop-rock hit. String & brass sections starts to be annoying...

8. "Grida, Urli & Strilli" - finally keyboardist's Hammond organ & piano playing became more audible here. However "Grida, Urli & Strilli" is still only straightforward rock'n'roller without any real prog/art factor. Overusing of orchestra kills the sheer rock energy for me here. Too much "cabaret" feeling IMO. But I have to admit that I enjoyed organ/guitar interlude soloing near the end of the track.

9. "Ci Sono Giorni" - slightly more proggy mid-tempo track with some good guitar solo & organ background. Thankfully no orchestra here so we can enjoy band-only performance.

10. "Souvenir" - quite entertaining hard rock song with rather catchy rhythm & melody. Very guitar-led, without any orchestra. Quite recommended compared with previous couple of turkeys.

11. "Hai Mai Tentato" - entertaining hard rock with good organ work and not too offensive brass section parts. Not impressive (like all the other songs here...) but still OK.

12. "Part Time" - melodic hard rock song with the most memorable refrain. Overall nothing special but if you like catchy/poppy rock with harder guitars you might like it.

How to judge this effort? It's fairly typical AOR/pop-hard-rock album without any surprises and if would be recorded with some debuting artist I could give them these 3 stars. But it's Il Rovescio Della Medaglia, famous symphonic prog act from 70s!! So I can't help to not compare "Microstorie" with 70s material of this formation. And this comparison makes album from 2010 look very pale. That's why I can recommend this album only to collectors of Italian hard rock with slight proggy feel and die-hard fans of 70s prog dinosaurs who want to check how their idols play in XXI century.

Best track: "Luca's Bar"

Only 2,5 stars from ozzy_tom