CHERRY FIVE

In fact the name of this 70's Italian group was Oliver, one of the few Italian bands to sing in English.Hailing from Roma they had an all-star line-up of drummer Carlo Bordini from Rustichelli e Bordini and later Goblin members Fabio Pignatelli on bass, Claudio Simonetti on keys and Massimo Morante on guitars.Oliver even traveled in England to audition a singer, eventually Clive "Artman" Haynes became the lead vocalist for a short period, but he was sacked and the band recruited Tony Tartarini (aka Toni Gionta from L' Uovo di Colombo) for the vocal work.The sole album of the band was recorded in 1974, but didn't see the light before January 76', eventually released under the name of Cherry Five.

Oliver were heavily influenced by the British Prog of the 70's, most notably from YES and GENESIS, and the fact they were quite talented resulted to challenging and complex arrangements with tight performances, but actually they did never escaped from the sound of their heroes, so not much was left to the imagination of the listener.Six nice and well- performed but unoriginal compositions is what this quintet left behind with strong symphonic leanings and a few Classic Rock and jazzy touches here and there, but the resemblance to YES' style becomes a bit annoying at moments.Of course the high level of the compositions makes the album far from boring.Lovely Classical-influenced interludes and solos performed on harpsichord and piano ala RICK WAKEMAN, strong organ leads, careful use of Mellotron, STEVE HOWE-like guitar workouts and deep bass work with evident lines from the work of CHRIS SQUIRE transform into complicated orchestral songs with shifting moods and sufficient instrumental passages.Tony Tartarini was known as an accomplished singer with L'UOVO DI COLOMBO and in ''Cherry Five'' he just prooves to be a decent frontman with an expressive and slightly GABRIEL-esque vocal color.

The rest of the story is more or less known.In 1975 Carlo Bordini, afraid that a contract with Oliver's label Cinevox could hurt his career as a session musician, refused to sign, and jumped off board along with Tartarini, propably this was the reason the album was not released in time.The rest of the crew moved on after changing their name to Goblin and had a succesful career with a more personal and unique sound.

''Cherry five'' comes as an equivalent to the works of Acqua Fragile and is likely to please more fans of British Prog than Classic Italian Prog due to the English lyrics and the strong British Prog influences.Pretty unoriginal but well-played Prog, that deserves a recommendation.