THE BLACK KNIGHT SHADOW

Protean Circus began life in Colleferro, near Rome, in 2016, inspired by classic rock, prog and a touch of power metal. In 2019 they self-released an interesting debut album entitled Rhymes In The Voice Of River with a line up featuring Daniele Imperioli (vocals), Marco Cutini (guitar), Lorenzo Zanelli (guitar), Andrea Piacentini (keyboards), Luigi Sebastianelli (bass) and Luca Cutini (drums). According to the band, this is a conceptual work loosely based upon The Matter of Britain, the body of Medieval literature and legendary material associated with the myths King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. Anyway, the band interpret these legends in a very free form: there’s no philological research nor real effort to revive Medieval music and the approach to the music and lyrics is definitively closer to Toto or Kansas than to Alan Stivell... 

The opener, “Ancient Rhymes” starts softly, the atmosphere is dreamy... But after a minute and a half a slapping bass breaks in determining a sudden change of mood: that’s not Avalon but Hollywood! As the music veers to AOR and the singer is asking if you are ready for an immersion in a fairy world, I’m reminded of Black Knight, a 2001 American fantasy adventure comedy film directed by Gil Junger and starring Martin Lawrence who plays the role of a theme park employee who is transported through time to medieval England... 

Protean Circus on stage, 2019

Next comes “The Vision” that tells of the meeting with a fallen angel and fades in the sweet, delicate “Whisper”, dealing with motherly love. Then it’s the turn of “Wild Waves”, about the need of a helping hand to overcome the storms of life and with the shadow of Dire Straits looming large. With the bluesy “Deception Is Revealed” we are on the road again between desires and passions while the following, melancholic “Imprisoned” is softer. For this track the band shot a video, a nice cartoon where painter Giulia Guglielmetti interpret the content of music and words with her images... 

“Alone” opens by a sudden surge of energy, then goes through many changes of rhythm and atmosphere as darkness falls down and merciless cold winds drain out the last energies of the solitary protagonist. Then the powerful, melodic “The Land Of Fortress” and “The End Of The King” take us in the lands of Avalon as imagined by the band. The long epic “Mild Immortal Nymph Of River” closes the album with an elegiac mood.

Well, lyrics and vocals are not the strength of this work and in my opinion the band should have tried to use their mother language for better results but they showcase a good potential and I enjoyed the album despite some passages that sound a bit kitsch to my ears...

You can listen to the complete album HERE

More info:

https://www.facebook.com/ProteanCircus/

LAZIO (part 3)

Well, the current Roman prog scene features also some bands trying to blend music and cinema in their live shows. RanestRane (MySpace) were formed in 1996 with the goal to compose and perform a “rock-opera”. The band chose a famous Werner Herzog film, “Nosferatu The Vampyre”, and commented it with music and original lyrics. They started their live activity in 2000 and conceived their shows as a “cine-concerto”, with the images of Werner Herzog’s film flowing in the background. In 2006 they released their rock opera on a self-produced studio double album and at the moment they are working on a new “cine-concerto” inspired by Stanley Kubrick’s film “Shining”. RanestRane’s multi-instrumentalist and composer Riccardo Romano also started a melodic progressive side project called Maredelnord (MySpace). Another local band performing “cine-concerti” is Memoria (MySpace), that was formed in 1991. In 2004 they tried to comment with notes and words Ridley Scott’s film Blade Runner, from the science fiction novel by Philip K. Dick Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. Memoria’s bass player Gianfranco Vigneri is also involved in another melodic prog rock project called Colmena (MySpace).

In Rome there are many pubs and venues where you can attend prog rock concerts, but at least two in particular deserve a mention, Stazione Birra and Crossroads. Among the many Roman emerging bands and artist in my opinion worthy of mention are, in no particular order, Ederadirame (MySpace), La Bocca della Verità (Facebook), La Stanza dei Sogni (Facebook), La Danza dei Fauni (MySpace), Lineateorica (MySpace), Progetto Esperia (MySpace), Il Cavallo di Don Juan (MySpace), Simposio d’Agosto (MySpace), KeyBridge (MySpace), Echoesthree (MySpace), Layra (MySpace), Ampio Spettro (MySpace), No Disc (MySpace), Gandalf's Project (MySpace), Seventh Will (MySpace), Ingranaggi della Valle (MySpace), Neroieri (MySpace), Turbo Elephant Project (MySpace), Master of Ceremony (MySpace), Effetto Catherine (MySpace), Grendel (MySpace), Vendetta di Montezuma (Facebook), Praeludium (My-Space), Fausto Bisantis (MySpace), Nogales (MySpace), Inior (Facebook - formerly Apple Device - Facebook), Arvalia (MySpace), Overfourteen (Official Website), Civico 23 (Reverbnation), Sunday Recovery (Reverbnation), Amministrazione Caos Popolare (Facebook), Macroscream (MySpace), Tiresia Raptus (Facebook), Idee Confuse (MySpace), Camelias Garden (Reverbnation), Sailor Free (Official Website), Afasia (Facebook), Laviàntica (Facebook), La Fabbrica dell'Assoluto (Facebook), Masquerade (Facebook) Over Waking Life (Facebook), Venus's Delight (Facebook), So Does Your Mother (Facebook), Lateral Blast (Facebook) and Alchimia (MySpace).

The best known experimental post metal bands from Rome are probably Novembre (MySpace) and Zu (MySpace). By the way, members of Zu are also involved in a completely different project that might be of some interest to prog lovers, the folk oriented Ardecore (Official Website). For post rock lovers there are AIIR (MySpace), Il Silenzio di Ghisa (MySpace) and La Seconda Eclisse (Facebook) while jazz rock lovers might well be interested in Anagramma (MySpace), Reagente 6 (Facebook), Dumbo Station (Facebook), Circolo Culturale Federico Magnani (MySpace), Garuà (MySpace), Worldream (MySpace), Virtual Dream (MySpace), Quartech (MySpace) and Staralfur (MySpace).

On the prog folk side there are the committed folk rocker influenced by prog Enrico Capuano (MySpace), then guitarist and composer Pasqualino Ubaldini (MySpace) and some bands as Ypsos (Bandcamp), Pentamerone (Bandcamp), Stilema XXI (MySpace), Arabeski Rock (MySpace), Sequoia Bisquits (MySpace) and Verbamanent (MySpace). Folk prog lovers will probably also appreciate Giulia Tripoti (MySpace) an interesting and eclectic female singer-songwriter in love with experiments and musical blending. She’s involved as a vocalist and songwriter in many projects such as the progressive-literary Beta Elements (MySpace), the ethno folk Terramaris (MySpace) and the post-rock alternative Blumenberg 67 (MySpace).

Last but not least Marco Lo Muscio (Official Website), a classical organist and pianist with a strong passion for prog who re-arranged and interpreted some prog classics for organ and piano solo. He also recorded some albums featuring original tracks that should be of some interest to prog lovers. His last album The Book Of Bilbo And Gandalf features guest stars such as Steve Hackett, John Hackett and Pär Lind.

Anyway Lazio is not only Rome. There are prog bands also in the other towns of the surroundings such as The Balmung (MySpace) from Mentana, Cambio della Guardia (Facebook) from Fiano Romano, La Sfera (MySpace) and La Sezione 8 (Facebook) from Velletri, Falena (MySpace) from Rocca di Papa, Protean Circus (Facebook) from Colleferro, Le Maschere Vuote (MySpace) from Cerveteri, Castle Fusion (Facebook) from Ostia, Nemesis (Facebook) from Civitavecchia, VZ69 (MySpace) and La N.A.V.E. (Facebook) from Tivoli and Lily Alice (MySpace) from Anzio. North of Rome, in VITERBO, which in the seventies gave us Blocco Mentale, we can now listen to some emerging bands as Cinetica (Facebook) and Archaeopteryx (MySpace) and an experimental project called La Guerra delle Formiche (MySpace) while Civita Castellana.is home to Il Giardino Onirico (Facebook). South of Rome, in LATINA we can listen to the neo prog Mytho (ReverbNation), then Clan Banlieue (MySpace), La Quinta Armonia (Facebook) and Mururoa (MySpace) while the near town of Formia is home to En Taro Adun (Facebook). East of Latina lies FROSINONE where we can listen to a folk rock project called Musicisti del Basso Lazio (MySpace) that recently released an interesting album called Terra di fuoco, while Sora is home to the jazz-rock Mobius Strip (Facebook).

We conclude our visit to Lazio in the province of RIETI, east of Rome. Here we find a band called Novalia (Official Website) that were formed 1985 on the initiative of multi-instrumentalists Raffaello Simeoni and Stefano Saletti. Their music features strong Mediterranean influences and should be of some interest to prog folk lovers. Raffaello Simeoni (MySpace) has also released two solo albums and is involved in some side projects. Stefano Saletti (MySpace) has released some solo works too and he’s also involved in another interesting folk project called Piccola Banda Ikona (MySpace).