SPRINGTIDES

Three years of silence and Fabio Zuffanti's Hostsonaten return with a so called ''Collection of Rare & Unreleased Tracks'' between 1992-2002,like if they knew it would be a long hiatus between ''Springsong'' and the next official studio release.Now this album contains mostly unreleased material during the 10 year existence of the band but also a few of known tracks in their demo version.Again the album was released through Mellow Records.

This work/material is actually good.The music is mainly laid-back Prog Rock with mostly Folk and Symphonic/Classical influences with touches of Jazz,but there are also a couple of dynamic compositions with dominant organ,fiery guitars and enough complexity.Regarding the demo versions of ''Seascape'',''Season of Eve'', ''Living stone and 1st Reprise'' and ''Morning'',the tracks are great but they lack in the production section compared to the album versions and IMO production is a strong point in Zuffanti's works.The rest of the (unreleased) tracks are good,nothing exceptional,close to Hostsonaten's style,mainly slow tempo acoustic numbers with folk leanings,sensitive vocals and a symphonic touch.It is actually a decent album for playing it in the background.

Rating ''Springtides'' is hard.For anyone who hasn't listened to Hostsonaten,this is a good introduction,although most of their studio releases are far better,and a 3 star rating is pretty fair.For the rest,who are already in a listening touch with the band (as I am),this album is rather useless despite the unreleased material,as it sounds pretty similar to what the band has presented in the past,unless you are a freak out collector of anything related to Italian past,present and future prog...2.5 stars.