COME IN UN'ULTIMA CENA

The first album of all-new compositions by Banco since Io Sono Nato Libero (if you don't count Garofano Rosso, which didn't include lead singer Francesco Di Giancomo's operatic vocals), Come In Un'Ultima Cena is a concept album surrounding the last supper which features the band's usual stellar level of performance, with each of the shorter pieces coming together into a cohesive whole. Vittorio and Gianni Nocenzi, the group's synthesiser wizards, had used Garofano Rosso to experiment with incorporating more modern synths into the group's sound, and the results on here are rather enchanting, updating Banco's sound for the latter half of the 1970s capably.

At the same time, the shift in sound is a double-edged sword. There's an extent to which Banco seem to be playing to others' expectations of what prog should sound like here, and the new synthesisers make this feel like a clean break from the classic Banco sound. Whereas Banco felt as though they had a distinctive, individual sound for their first three albums, here it feels watered-down by the band worrying a little too much about keeping up with their competitors as opposed to simply revelling in what made them so unique.