FRONTIERA

I've loved this album from the very first day I heard it. Truly love at first listen, a bizarre addictive love no less, and the feeling hasn't diminished with the years - on the contrary, Procession's debut Frontiera is still very close to my heart. Ditching the whole synth race, these guys opted for a more earthy and basic instrumentation with a ravine of acoustic guitars, raw frenetic electrified guitar licks, walking bass lines, punchy acute, and at times heavy as hell, drumming, flute and a bitter-sweet vocalist, who means the world to me.

Like I've mentioned countless of times before, I have no real understanding of the beautiful Italian language, which in turn means that it can mean whatever the hell my mind makes it into. On here I've decided that the singing is just so damn gorgeous in itself, that I'm not even slightly interested in finding out what he's singing about. For all I care, it could be the world's creation, zebras, eternal youth or difficult sore love. It expresses nothing and everything at the same time for me.

Opposite the heavy hits of this baby, you find a sprawling folky and highly melodic side of the band. This is where the old rural traditional music begins to shine through, and you effectively get the most alluring wisps of the warm romantic Italian countryside. 4th cut called Incontra very elegantly puts my words to shame though. The mandolin playing is inspiring on this sucker, and together with the tweeting bird like flute, the music really takes off. A thousand sun ripened tomatoes couldn't dream of relegating the same kind of endemic feel, as this tune does.

Later on, in between brilliantly melodic almost symphonic and always highly imaginative pieces, one particular track stands out to me. Un Mondo Liberta(A free world) manages to take all that's powerful and vibrant in Frontiera and squeeze into a good 8 minutes of progressive folk, scratching raw guitar rock and what genuinely sounds like Italian Doo wop(A prominent and most delicious feature throughout the playing time of this gem actually).

Like a sudden brutal awakening from a stormy and huge dream, a wild rocking guitar shoots through the airwaves following the lengthy piece, and when you've finally gotten well into the groove of this granite creature, the mood changes for the more quiet and delicate, small dozy guitar figurines start swirling slowly about, and you get hit with a frail goosebumps inducing guitar feedback. It says it all really. There's so much life and soul in this recording, it'll have your blood vessels doing the jig.

If you're into the heavier side of the Italian scene - ie Cervello, Biglietto per L'Inferno, Semiramis and Metamorfosi, then you'll probably want to move together with this album, find a small apartment somewhere and just hang out till one of you needs food, electricity or sex.

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