Chaptersend is the fourth studio album by Mogador, an
interesting prog band from Como, Lombardy. It was released in 2017
with a renewed line up featuring Richard George Allen (drums, vocals,
percussion), Luca Briccola (guitars, keyboards, bass, flute, backing
vocals), Salvatore Battello (bass, guitars, backing vocals), Samuele
Dotti (keyboards, backing vocals) and Marco Terzaghi (vocals) plus
some guests such as Jon Davison (vocals), Ida Di Vita (violin) and
Elisa Salvaterra (flute). According to the liner notes in the
booklet, this work represents a sort of end and beginning at the
same time. The band evolved from a simple studio project to a
real band playing live on stage and took the chance to refresh their
early repertoire reshaping in an effective way same old pieces...
The lively opener “Summer Sun” is a celebration of the sun and of
its sparkling force in a summer day. The music every now and again
could recall PFM while the lyrics are taken from a poem by Robert Louis Stevenson of the same title included in the 1885 collection “A
Children’s Garden of Verses”.
Next comes the powerful “The Escapologist”, a beautiful piece
inspired by the life and death of Harry Houdini (1874 – 1926), a
world-wide famous Hungarian-born American escape artist, illusionist
and stunt performer. For a trick of the fate, the death-defying man
of mystery who performed at least three variations on a buried alive
stunt during his career eventually ends up in a box from where
there’s no way to come out... His coffin!
“Deep Blue Steps” is beautiful track that tells of a suggestive
descent into the subconscious and of desires you can’t control.
It’s linked to the following “Still Alone”, a new
interpretation of Edgar Allan Poe’s poem “Alone”, where the
poet describes the tragedy of not being part of the crowd. This new
version is very different from the one from their previous album
Absinthe Tales Of Romantic Visions, more complex and
refined...
“Josephine’s Regrets” features the backing vocals of the guest
Jon Davison and is a lovely emotional portrait in music and words of
Napoleon’s wife Joséphine de Beauharnais, a patron of arts whose
Château_de_Malmaison was best known for its rose garden, which she
supervised closely...
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| Mogador 2019 |
“Breaking Day” is a colourful musical tableau where the music and
words depict a hill landscape before the storm. It leads to the
dramatic “Gentleman John”, a piece dedicated to the memory of
Anthony John Morgan (1959 – 2000), an English writer and expert on
etiquette best remembered for his column in London based daily
newspaper The Times...
The new version of “Tell Me Smiling Child”, a folksy ballad with
lyrics taken from a poem by Emily Brontë, introduces the long,
complex “Fundamental Elements Suite”, divided into five parts:
The Tide’s Undertow, The Salamander, Floating In The Void, Mammon’s
Greed: Eternity’s Gift and Mammon’s Greed: Infinity’s Price.
The band here deconstructed and rebuilt some pieces from their 2009
debut eponymous album giving them a more coherent, convincing form.
The music and lyrics deal with environmental issues, passions, fears,
greediness, freedom, respect for Mother Nature... A great finale!
On the whole, an accomplished and mature work from a band that
deserve credit!
You can listen to the complete album HERE
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