Twenty Flying Kings is the fourth studio album by Court, from
Varese. It was recorded during several sessions that took place
between 2007 and 2012 and finally released in 2012 on the independent
label Ma.Ra.Cash Records with the renewed line up featuring Marco
Pedrini (vocals), Mosè Nodari (guitars, oboe, recorders, vocals),
Jacopo Favrin (bass), Marco Strobel (guitar, mandolin, keyboards) and
Francesco Vedani (drums, percussion, keyboards) plus some guests such
as Luigi Bonacina (bass), Andrea Balliano (classical guitar),
Giandomenico Fraschini (piano) and Andrea Cajelli (percussion). The
album summarizes the history of the band, whose roots date back to
1990, and marks a new starting point. In fact, it features four
pieces from their early period re-arranged by the new line up, two
tracks originally released on the Colossus-Musea themed album The
Divine Comedy Part I – Dante’s Inferno and one
previously unreleased track...
The opener “Cries” is a shortened, condensed but not less
effective version of a piece from the 1993 debut album “And
You'll Follow The Winds' Rush 'till Their Breath Dwells”, a
heartfelt complaint against war and tyranny. There’s no glorious
victory that can revive the dead nor heal the ruin left behind by the
armies fighting in the name of their whimsical kings...
The following “Anastasius’ Epitaph” and “The Great Bear
Rising” are linked together and come from Dante’s Inferno.
Their source of inspiration is the Canto XI of the Divine Comedy that
describes the meeting between the sommo poeta and Pope Anastasius II. In a damned place where even spring has a strange
smell words like heresy and betrayal hide an obscure meaning...
“Sumptuous Moment” is an extended new version of the wonderful
epic from Court’s second album Distances,
where the band manage to
develop some ideas and showcase great maturity and gusto.
It’s a visionary celebration
of the power of Mother Nature, inspired by the poetry of Emily Dickinson, where a thunder storm combines the charms of winter and
of hell... Here folk influences and classical flavours are
combined with the energy of rock instruments to conjure up a dreamy
atmosphere and bring to life wandering shadows lost in the woods
under the moon...
Court 2019
The first version of the melancholic “Lovers” was originally
released on the debut album and here the band gives new life to the
tragic story of a princess that preys night and day for the return of
his beloved knight who is gone abroad, over the see, to fight in the
name of the his king. When the army comes back without him she jumps
down from the tower to fly away and meet her man...
The short, delicate acoustic ballad “Dream Tale” is the only
original track and tells of a child who dreams of being a brave
knight in a fantastic world full of adventures... It takes to the
re-arranged version of another long epic piece from the debut album,
“Alviss’ Revenge”, inspired by Norse Mythology and Nordic
sagas. It tells a bloody story of rings and vengeance, kings and
Valkyries, robberies and murders and ends an album that is really
worth listening to.
Wyrd
is the third album by Roman project Ellesmere and was released in
2020 on the independent label AMS Records. To complete the line up
and enrich the sound, this time composer and multi instrumentalist
Roberto Vitelli (bass, guitar,
Moog) gathered around
him many prestigious guests such as Mattias Olsson (drums, from
Anglagard, and White Willow), Tomas Bodin (keyboards, from The Flower
Kings), David Cross (violin, from King Crimson), John Hackett
(flute), David Jackson (sax, from Van Der Graaf Generator), Tony
Pagliuca (keyboards, from Le Orme), Luciano Regoli (vocals, from
Raccomandata con Ricevuta di Ritorno and DGM), Fabio Liberatori
(keyboards, from Il Poliedro di Leonardo and the new line up of Reale
Accademia di Musica), Fabio Bonuglia (keyboards, Mellotron, Hammond,
Moog) and Giorgio Pizzala (vocals). The result is a good mix of
vintage sounds, modern prog and jazz rock with a wide range of
influences ranging from Yes, King Crimson or Kansas to Transatlantic,
The Flower Kings and Spock's Beard.
The
wonderful artwork by Rodney Matthews recalls the style of Roger Dean
and evokes wondrous stories and epic adventures in fantastic worlds
and enchanted woods. The first three tracks are linked together and
form an excellent suite. On “Challenge” you can hear the voice of
a young warrior leaving his country for new territories crawling with
tall tales, myths and stories of haunted spirits and goblins. He’s
hiding under the cloak of his dreams as the wind blows... “The Eery
Manor” is a sparkling instrumental section where John Hackett and
David Jackson showcase all their great talent painting disquieting
atmospheres and adding vivid touches of colours to the picture with
saxes, flutes and other wind instruments. After a long ride through a
dark forest on a strange horse among nymphs, friendly dwarves and
lurking werewolves you’re in sight of a mysterious castle...
“Endeavour” ends the first part of the album combining dreamy,
pastoral parts and harder passages and could recall every now and
again ELP or Van Der Graaf Generator. The warrior relies on his good
luck to defy the fate and discover what’s hidden behind the walls
of the castle...
The
second part of the album (or the side B of the LP) begins with “Ajar”
and a martial marching beat. Echoes of Delirium III could come to
mind. Hardly any sunlight breaks through the dense tree tops of the
forest, and the myths surrounding these woods are more fantastical
than paranormal. You can imagine hunting Tarkus and other strange
creatures all around... However, the only way to know for certain
what monsters await around the next bend is to venture out into the
darkness yourself...
The
long instrumental “Endless” closes the album. There are other
surprises along the way that you might never expect to find deep in
the woods and so it's no surprise that the surreal world depicted in
the art cover could develop a reputation for spooky sounds and
ghostly apparitions. Some cinematic passages could recall Ennio
Morricone and stir the imagination of the listener and could be the
perfect for a fantasy film score...
On
the whole, a very good album. Especially recommended to symphonic
prog lovers!
Alice’s Mirror were formed in 2016 in Ruvo di Puglia, a town in the
province of Bari, with the aim of playing a personal kind of
progressive rock merging influences from the past and modern sounds.
After some time spent in composing original pieces and refining them
playing gigs on the local scene, in 2018 the band released an
interesting debut album entitled Through The Mirror on the
independent label Hydra Music with a line up featuring Fulvio Bucci
(vocals, bass), Eduardo Bucci (organ, piano, keyboards), Walter
Antonio Lanotte (guitars, bouzouki, lap steel) and Michele Di Modugno
(drums, pad). The album artwork by Francesco Pio Marcone reflects the
musical content and in the pics you can find in the booklet you can
also appreciate all the attention that the musicians pay to the
visual aspect of their music, influenced by the novel of Lewis
Carroll and the colourful, animated film by Walt Disney. According to
the band, the mirror reflects what we are and it could be seen as a
gate to enter the soul of a musician while Alice – the protagonist
of a journey through a surreal, crazy world – represents a metaphor
of the musical research of the band...
The dreamy instrumental opener “Fake communication #1” starts
softly by a spacey atmosphere and ends with an excerpt from the 1981
Italian comedy-drama film Sweet Dreams directed by Nanni
Moretti where you can hear Nanni Moretti’s enraged voice repeat “I
do not speak about things I don’t know!”. It’s the
introduction to “Fake Communication” a committed, heartfelt
reflection about the negative effects of social media on our way to
communicate where words become just noise and too many people seem to
speak up without anything to say, prisoners of the likes on their
chats...
An excerpt from the Italian version of Alice In Wonderland,
the 1951 American animated musical fantasy film produced by Walt
Disney Productions introduces the excellent instrumental piece
“Alice's Dance” that blends echoes from the seventies and nervous
heavy passages with electric guitar and organ in the forefront.
It leads to “Ronin”, a kind of elegy for a lost friend that
begins by a delicate acoustic guitar arpeggio and a dreamy piano
pattern. The mood is melancholic as the music and words depict pale
clouds in a still sky and blossoming flowers in the fields... The
springtime landscape is the sad set for the last goodbye to a
wandering warrior, a samurai without lord nor land... This track
features the backing vocals of the Corale Polifonica “Rubis Canto”
directed by Maestro Nicola Bucci.
A short excerpt from a documentary about Johann Sebastian Bach that
stigmatizes the bad temper of the famous composer introduces “Bachtown”, a sparkling exercise of style where the musicians showcase
their talent and great musicianship blending rock and classical
music, from Bach to Mozart and his Turkish March from the Piano
Sonata in A Major n. 11...
“Merigold” is a nice folksy piece that deals with the issue of
emigration. You have to face a problematic choice, are you really
sure you’ll be happier if you leave behind and forget your homeland
and roots to search for a better place where to live and make money?
Is this the life you really want? All that glitters is not always
gold...
Two instrumental tracks close the album, the nervous “Jump The
Step” and the long, dreamy “Arabian Carpet”, sprinkled with
Oriental flavours and touches of psychedelia to conjure up a strong
sense of mystery and where aggressive electric guitar riffs alternate
with softer, acoustic passages.
On the whole, a very good album although I think that it’s a pity
that the band did not exploit more their mother language for lyrics
and vocals.
The roots of Utopia 239 date back to 1971 when in a village of the
province of Vercelli called Lignana four friends formed a band to
play covers and compose original stuff inspired by Italian canzone
d’autore and progressive rock bands such as Pink Floyd or Le
Orme. During their early years the band never had the chance to
properly record and release an album and they split up at the end of
the seventies. It wasn’t until 2002 that some of the old members
reunited and decided to rework on their early repertoire taking it
back from oblivion. In 2015 they finally self-released a debut album
entitled I giorni dell’utopia (The days of Utopia) with a
renewed line up featuring along with the veterans Massimo Cagliero
(guitar, keyboards, vocals), Ugo Giva Magnetti (guitar, vocals) and
Fausto Garella (drums, percussion, vocals) also Fabrizio Gallina
Sabarino (keyboards, synth), Enrico Barbano (electric and classical
guitar), Fosca Zanone (vocals, classical guitar) and Alberto Bocchio
(bass).
The opener “Ouverture” is a short, ethereal instrumental track
with the keyboards in the forefront that sets the atmosphere and
leads to “Una borgata” (A township), a piece originally written
in 1972 that tells about the formative years spent by a man in an old
village between flowers and thorns with a mill, a church, an old inn
and where memories are carried away by the wind... The pace is slow
and the mood melancholic as the music and the poetical lyrics
describe a little town and its hypocritical mentality, then the
strong desire of looking for new horizons, leaving behind faded
masks, broken dreams and false appearances. The following “Un
povero cristo” (A poor man) is a short ballad that was clearly
inspired by the style of Fabrizio De Andrè and Francesco Guccini and
depicts the lonesome death, in a hospital bed, of an old poor
villager. Then, the images of his funeral follow: few people, no
flowers, no tears... Life goes on as usual as the memory of the
solitary fades away.
“Ho udito le megattere cantare” (I’ve heard the humpback whales
singing) is a long instrumental track that could recall One Of
These Days by Pink Floyd and leads to “9 febbraio, un giorno”
(February the 9th, a day), a sad elegy that evokes broken illusions
and the blood splattered on the asphalt as a consequence of an
accident at work on a normal day in an impersonal, ungrateful
metropolis that seems unaware of this kind of tragedies... Then it’s
the turn of the long, complex “Il narratore delle storie degli
inferi” (The teller of the hell’s stories) a dramatic piece
dealing the issue of drug addiction where the lyrics unfold in the
form of a dialogue between a “right-thinking” narrator and a
damned junky drawn away across the dark infinite space by the white
dust he holds in his hands...
The short instrumental “La danza delle lucciole” (The dance of
the fireflies) is a dreamy track that leads to the dramatic “Amore
fragile” (Fragile love), a melancholic ballad about the first love
and the loss of innocence. Then it’s the turn of the introspective,
hermetic “Il bivio” (The crossroads) that tells about the torn
choices a teenager girl has to make, uncertain about which way to
follow between dreams and stability, dangerous paths or beaten
tracks...
According to the band, “Gloria in excelsis machina (Il confine)”
is a piece conceived as a hymn to the human decadence. It
tries to depict in music and words a dystopic future where, without
the ability to experience or express feelings, humankind is pushed to
the edges of the galaxies. Man is now the prisoner of a cage that he
has built with his own hands, a cage that he will no longer be able
to break down as his life plunges towards extinction on board of
ghost spaceships lost into the mists of Andromeda... The following
“Ritorno alle origini” (Back to the roots) is another track that
tries to conjure up apocalyptic images and deals with the tendency to
self-destruction of the human race. You can hear Mother’s nature
lament in the day after of a nuclear war. There’s nothing but ruin
all around the gloomy landscape. And yet, there’s still hope for a
new start as a pale light breaks the veil of darkness...
“Risveglio” is a short instrumental linked to the final track,
“La morte e la fanciulla” (The Death and the maiden), that tells
in a poetical way of the tragic death of a young girl. The girl is
raped and murdered by a maniac killer, her body is found the day
after in a suburban lawn. Here reality and dream melt and what is
just another tragic crime news becomes a fairy tale...
On the whole, an interesting album although it could be difficult to
fully appreciate it without an adequate comprehension of the lyrics.
Illusion Of Gravity took shape in Turin in 2013 on the initiative of
keyboardist Umberto Alberto and drummer Davide Garofalo. After some
line up changes and a first period spent performing cover versions of
pieces by Pink Floyd, Genesis, PFM, Caravan or Porcupine Tree, they
started to work on their own compositions with the
aim of merging into a progressive rock core a combination
of different musical genres.In 2020 they finally self
released a debut album entitled Too Late with a line up
featuring Umberto Alberto (keyboards), Davide Garofalo (drums),
Federico Aluzzi (lead vocals, rhythm guitar), Alessandro Cascella
(lead guitar) and Gabriele Zuddas (bass). The final result is a good
mix of modern and vintage sounds...
The opener “Too Late” starts by a spacey crescendo that could
recall Pink Floyd, then the dark, pulsing atmosphere gives way to a
more melodic part where the music and lyrics evoke the regrets for
some wrong choices made in the past but also the awareness of the
need to go on. If you try, you might find that it’s not too late to
redeem yourself learning from your errors but you have to fight hard
to come out from the abyss of a personal crises and never stop to
hope in better days to come...
“Shining Bliss” blends eighties keyboard sounds and more
aggressive parts with electric guitar riffs in the forefront to
depict and criticize a false, hypocritical world where appearances
rule and the value of a person is based only on his or her richness
and bloodline...
The dark “Strange Home” conjures up haunting presences and
painful memories that keep you stuck in a house once familiar and now
transformed in a kind of mental prison. The following “I Can”
starts by a keyboard pattern with a strong new wave flavour, then the
music takes another direction while the lyrics depict an effort to
break through from a bleak reality getting lost in a psychedelic
trip...
The long, complex epic “Kua Fu” closes the album with fiery
guitar riffs and other brilliant instrumental passages. The title
refers to the name of a giant who wished to capture the Sun, a legend
in Chinese mythology that the band tells through the voice of Kua Fu
by interpreting his desperate, crazy effort to tame the light. There
are many versions of this myth, here the Moon, queen of the night,
has mercy of the protagonist and tries to save him from the burning
power of the Sun...
On the whole, a good album full of nuances but that needs several
spins to be fully appreciated.
