A DESPERATE DREAM OF FREEDOM

Preda is the third studio album by Mad Crayon and was released in 2009 on the independent AMS Records label. Ten years after their previous work, Diamanti, the band came back with new ideas and a renewed line up featuring Daniele Vitalone (vocals, bass), Alessandro Di Benedetti (vocals, piano, keyboards, percussion), Federico Tetti (vocals, guitars) and Daniele Agostinelli (vocals, keyboards) plus the guest Stefano Crudele (drums). In fact, this album marks an important evolution for the band. The musical fabric is richer, more refined, the vintage influences are still present but updated with a touch of modernity and freshness. It’s a complex concept album about a personal crises set in a dystopic world and the art cover and the pictures in the booklet can give an idea of the musical and lyrical content. Unfortunately there are no liner notes to explain the plot and you have to fill the gaps in the story with your imagination and the feelings that the music conveys...

 

The opener “Re Schiavo” (Slave king) introduces the subject matter. It begins by background voices and a disquieting atmosphere. The rhythm is slow and the lyrics evoke sweet, hard-to-die memories and an old photograph. Then the wind begins to blow, blotting out the dream. The protagonist realizes of being part of a timeless subhuman system, a mountain without a top that will sooner or later crumble. As the rhythm rises you can almost perceive a burst of indignation. Man devastates and ravages his environment night and day without mercy, turning it into a gloomy place. When the rhythm calms down there’s room for a melancholic mood and for an epitaph to humanity before a final surge of anger...

 

The long, complex “Preda” (Prey) is divided into two parts. The first part starts by pulsing bass lines and a funky rhythm, but soon the atmosphere becomes darker, almost suffocating. The music and lyrics tell of an unresting night with the protagonist surrounded by the threatening, oppressive lights of a city that in his eyes looks like a prison. He has to act like everyone else, wearing a mask to hide his true feelings. But now the time has come, he plans to escape and he feels just like a prey... As the rhythm rises the hunt begins and is up to your imagination to follow his efforts. The second part opens with a heavy electric guitar riff and dark organ waves, the protagonist keeps on running and you’re left with the image of a mask hanging from the a willow tree as the wind is blowing. A man is really trying to cheat death or is this just a desperate dream of freedom?

 

“Gabriel” is a melancholic track that evokes faceless shadows and screams drowned out by the noise of civilization. Something is burning without flames and there’s room for regret and rage, sweet memories and gloomy omens... Then comes the beautiful instrumental “Xoanon” that seems to take you on an imaginary journey through space and time. The title refers to a wooden cult image of Archaic Greece associated with the legendary Daedalus...

 

The delicate “L’isola di Sara” (Sara’s Island) brings out aching memories and misunderstood words carved into stone, in places out of reach. The music and words evoke burning scars and painful regrets but there are also melodic hints of hope. The bandcamp special version of the album features a track for piano and narrative vocals that you can’t find on the original CD, “Isola di Sara Intro”. It’s an introduction to this song with the guest Benedetta Degli Innocenti playing the role of Sara, composed for the live version of the album in 2012 but never performed. It’s the letter of a rebellious daughter to her father who once was an idealist and now is part of the system, changed by his part in the ruling power...

“Sovrano dell’illusione” (King of illusion) is divided into two parts. The first part begins by a delicate piano passage, the atmosphere is dreamy and melancholic. The music and lyrics describe the sad reflections of a man of power who becomes aware that his kingdom is just a world gloomy misery where is weakness what keeps men together. He’s alone in his solitude, greediness has turned his rule in a kingdom of tears but now he dreams of a new dawn and turns his eyes to the mountains of the moon, where the illusion is perfect... In the second part the rhythm rises, the sounds are harder but the feeling of confusion and restlessness never goes away...

“Re Schiavo Reprise” concludes the album with a brushstroke of repentance and regret. The protagonist vows to make his best to repair all the errors he made...

On the whole, a wonderful album that is really worth listening to.

You can listen to the complete album HERE

More info:
https://www.facebook.com/madcrayon/

Mad Crayon: Preda (2009). Other opinions:
Jim Russell: In 2009 Mad Crayon reinvented themselves with a much more technically complex and harder edged modern sound on Preda. Most of the Tony Banks inspirations have been replaced by something closer to Ozric Tentacles, D.F.A., Yugen, and even a few bits of Porcupine Tree (Deadwing era, with some metal influence but not quite metal). It is pretty obvious that the guys labored hard over these tracks, they are filled with ambition and complexity... The variety of styles and the wide swings in intensity provide a package that will surely satiate adrenalin seeking prog fans. I think "Preda" is a good album by a very tight band... (Read the complete review HERE)

 

 

 

FIRST AND LAST MIRAGE

 Frammenti is the first (and, for now, the last) album by Mirage, a band active in the early nineties and based in Genzano, a town near Rome. It was released in 1994 on the Mellow Records label with a line up featuring Marco Di Benedetto (piano, keyboards), Giuseppe Iampieri (piano, synth), Roberto Cesaroni (bass), Stefano Cupellini (drums) and Walter Cimoroni (vocals, flute) plus the guests Massimo Frittella (vocals, backing vocals), Diego Confortini (drums), Paolo Mari (guitar) and Rodolfo Maltese (guitar). Their style was mainly influenced by bands such as Genesis, Yes, Jethro Tull, Pink Floyd, Banco del Mutuo Soccorso and the other progressive rock masters from the seventies...

 

The opener “Madre dei pensieri” (Mother of thoughts) might occasionally recall Jethro Tull and takes you on an inner journey across dark, cold landscapes. As in a dream, on the raging waters of an unknown sea, the protagonist longs for a harbour where he can feel safe and put the pieces of his broken personality together. Finally he finds the right place and he can listen to some strange songs during an evening celebration. There he asks the priestess to shout up his name while she sings his fate...

The dreamy “Prisma” (Prism) evokes a precious gift falling from the sky, the end of the winter and the return of spring. In the night the protagonist can already see the light of dawn and, as in a kind of trance, he can breathe his own thoughts as if they were nothing but air. Now, outside every form of reality, he feels happy...

The complex “Il suono del tempo” (The sound of time) depicts with notes and hermetic lyrics the relationship between man and time, the desire to be reborn after death and the search for the truth behind useless appearances. As the protagonist unsuccessfully tries to stop the movement of the golden pendulum that marks the rhythm of life, infinity gathers his thoughts...

 

 

“L’eco dei sorrisi” (The echo of smiles) opens softly with vocals on a church like organ background evoking a game of memories, then the rhythm rises dragging you into a vortex of visions... It leads to the epic “Il giardino del re giullare” (The garden of the Jester King) that depicts in music and words a surreal, timeless inner shelter where you heal your wounded pride and recover your dignity, shout for your joy and cry for your pains without fear, aware of all your mistakes and doubts...

“Le cose del nulla” (The things of nothingness) starts by a short bass solo and tells about an otherworldly and cathartic experience, a hypothetical meeting with Cerberus and an infernal journey to find where the fears and all the things that never arrived are hidden... Then the dreamy, acoustic “Illusione” (Illusion) ends the album with an ethereal atmosphere.

On the whole, an interesting work that deserves a try.

You can listen to the complete album HERE

After the band split up keyboardist Giuseppe Iampieri continued his musical career under the pseudonym of Mistheria turning to metal but he has never denied his first love for Italian prog. Giuseppe Iampieri a.k.a. Mistheria: You might not know that, before to begin my career as a classical/metal soloist and before launching my Vivaldi Metal Project, I got started with an Italian Prog-Rock band called "Mirage". The one shot work "Frammenti" is the album that was released in 1994, the first ever album of my career, an album for which I wrote five songs out of seven, both music and words. It's an album that I therefore remember with great affection even though my musical journey went elsewhere later on...

More info: 

https://www.mistheria.com/

 

LAST MIRAGE

Mad Crayon began life in the mid eighties in Genzano, a town near Rome. They took inspiration by the progressive rock of the seventies and recorded a first demo with original compositions in 1992. In 1994 the band recorded and managed to release on the independent label Cygnus Records their debut album, Ultimo miraggio, with a line up featuring Daniele Agostinelli (keyboards), Luca Cleri (guitar), Alessandro Di Benedetti (piano, synthesizers), Stefano Fabiani (drums) and Daniele Vitalone (bass). It’s a concept album revolving around the problematic love story between the daughter of the moon and the son of the sun and where the main musical influences come from Genesis or neo-prog bands such as Marillion. The beautiful, oneiric art work by Walter Mac Mazzieri (best known for his art covers for Le Orme) in some way depicts the subject matter...
 

The opener “Lost In Years” sets the atmosphere. In a world not very far from here lived two lovers... The music and words depict a world where love and friendship are forbidden and where, because of the feelings that the two lovers have for each other, she is condemned by the mighty, cruel king to go back in time and to come to life again to purify her sin while he has to raise her as her father and to get old prematurely...

The following “Dance Of Puppets” starts by a frenzied passage describing the lively dance of two puppets on stage. Then the rhythm slackens, the puppets get tired to dance and a veil of melancholy falls down. For them it’s time to run away, far from the crowd and the city lights... But when the rhythm rises we know that tomorrow the dance of the puppets will start again and that the marionettes will play their role once more time.

The short, dreamy “Fiore di Luna” (Moonflower) is a delicate lullaby sung (in Italian) by the son of the sun to the daughter of the moon that now is sleeping and taking off on a ship directed up to the sky, under sun... He can’t forget her!

 

The sparkling “Running Child” is an instrumental track that begins with a spacey intro and then goes on mixing the energy of rock with classical influences ranging from Bach to Mozart’s Turkish March. It leads to the following “Rapids To The Distant Sea” that tells in music and words (again in English) of a desperate, metaphorical fight against the sea and of a breathless run against the tide...

Next comes “I giardini di Zoe” (Zoe’s gardens) where after a classical guitar incipit the music and lyrics (this time in Italian) conjure up the image of the peaceful, hidden enchanted garden where the lovers used to meet each other defying the authority...

The long, complex “Ultimo miraggio” (Last mirage) starts softly, with a melancholic mood, while the music and words (in Italian) deliver a heartfelt complaint against an adverse destiny. The night is like a shield for the silence and everything freezes in the heart of a man who’s longing for a paradise where his dreams would turn into reality. His lover is just a mirage now... Then “Persa nel tempo” (Lost in time) closes the album with a reprise of the first track (with a different arrangement and this time sung in Italian), painting with vivid strokes of colour a dream that is now imprisoned in a beautiful tableau...

On the whole, a good album although the vocal parts are not always up to the task and the idea of switching the lyrics from English to Italian and vice versa could make it difficult to follow the storyline.

You can listen to the complete album HERE

Mad Crayon: Ultimo miraggio (1994). Other opinions:
Mike McLatchey: At times, I find it to be too lyrically overloaded, yet I'm sure would be more effective with more of a balance. It’s their instrumental capability that takes these guys over the edge. At times they are breathtaking, with classical melodies played at a frenetic pace - harmonically complex and emotionally moving. In all truth, this is a very good debut... (Read the complete review HERE)

More info:

https://www.facebook.com/madcrayon/