METAL REFLECTIONS

Quasar H7 come from Isernia and took shape in 2012 on the initiative of Francesco Cipullo and Luigi Rinaldi. Their music is a brilliant mix of prog metal and jazz with reminiscences of classical music, sense of humour and passionate energy. After a hard work and some live performances on the local scene, in 2016 they self-released an excellent debut album entitled Nanodroids, recorded at Queen's Academy Studios in Isernia with a line up featuring Eleonora Moro (vocals), Francesco Cipullo (keyboards), Luigi Rinaldi (guitar), Michele Milano (drums) and Francesco Coja (bass). According to the band, it was conceived as a conceptual work with a fantasy plot half way between history and science fiction... Anyway, there’s no storyline to follow and the lyrics are used just to add colours to the musical canvas, as you can guess from the album cover...

 

The excellent opener “Nanodroids” is a kind of manifesto of the band’s approach to composition and blends prog metal with classical music and jazz with flamboyant energy and bold, original combinations. It starts by a spacey intro and heavy electric guitar riffs, then keyboards begin to weave classical arabesques alternating with electric guitar solos. As the rhythm calms down a classical piano solo passage follows and leads to an operatic choral part in a crescendo that ends... in a funny jazzy outro!

“Zantesuken” is another blow of energy and pyrotechnics with the voice of the jazz trained singer Eleonora Moro coming out of the dark and taking off to the sky for some vocal acrobatics and somersaults into the void without net... The following “Liquid Reflections” is an articulated track full of changes in rhythm and atmosphere. There are even short passages mixing prog metal with Broadway musical hints and hard rock riffs while the vocals evoke psychedelic visions emerging from the void of an inner world where dreams rule and you can fly with the black wings of a swan over an ocean of fire...

 

 

Next comes the evocative “Going Home”, a calm, dreamy piece where vocals are used just like a charming instrument... Then, the following “Embrature's Return” blends a strong jazz flavour with AC/DC electric impulses before veering elsewhere. Eleonora Moro showcases here her mastering of different vocal styles going from scat to heavy metal with an excellent theatrical approach...

“Vita Fugge (Caphemba)” starts by a sound of harpsichord, then mixes opera and heavy metal with the soprano vocals flying in the air over fiery guitar solos and punching rhythms, trying to stop the circling movement of the hands of a clock... The closer “Time Around The Clock” starts by mysterious Oriental flavours, then you can hear a bizarre quote from “Pop Corn” by La Strana Società that leads in another direction. There are operatic passages, classical piano solos smothered by aggressive electric guitar riffs and a sense of constant change hanging on until the end of the album...

On the whole, a very interesting debut work!

You can listen to the complete album HERE

AN EVIL BEAST

Borrello is a beautiful small town in the province of Chieti in the Abruzzo region, near the border with the province of Isernia in Molise. Nearby you can visit a natural park with the highest waterfalls in the Apennines, le Cascate del Verde. Here, in the middle of these magnificent panoramas, in the late seventies, five young friends in love with progressive rock music formed a band called the Sfaratthons, a word derived from the local dialect that can be loosely translated as "the idlers". The first line up of the band featured Cecilio Luciano (drums, vocals), Giovanni Di Nunzio (guitar, sax, vocals), Mario Rosato (keyboards), Bruno Di Nunzio (bass) and Luca Luciano (vocals, guitar). With the help of another friend, lyricist Argentino D'Auro, they started to work on a rock opera dealing with environmental issues entitled La bestia umana. Unfortunately, the band never managed to release an album during their early days and eventually split up in the eighties.

In 2011 some of the old members reunited with the idea of making an old dream come true. With a renewed line up featuring Cecilio Luciano (drums), Giovanni Di Nunzio (lead vocals, guitar, sax), Luca Di Nunzio (keyboards, guitar, vocals), Giovanni Casciato (bass, guitar) and Mario Di Nunzio (bass), the Sfaratthons started to work again on their old compositions. Another original member, Luca Luciano (Facebook), is now an appreciated painter and took charge of the art work while lyricist Argentino D'Auro wrote a book about the concept of the album and the history of the band... During the recording sessions the band was helped by some guest musicians such as Geoff Warren (flute), Berardo Adenolfi (guitar) and Giovanni Ferrari (sax) that contributed to enrich the sound. The album was finally completed and self-released in 2016 and I think it's really worth listening to. The music and lyrics are able to convey emotions and there's a vintage atmosphere that could recall some Italian album from the seventies...

The instrumental opener "Overture" is like a kind of time machine that takes you back in time. Imagine to dive in a sea of green grass in a foggy September morning... There are evocative vintage sounds and quiet pastoral atmospheres that could recall bands such as PFM or Blocco Mentale. Now you are surrounded by a still uncontaminated nature...

"La bestia umana" (The human beast) begins by what seems like a child's lament, a disquieting guitar arpeggio and swirling flute notes, then a marching beat and the voice of Giovanni Di Nunzio introduce a strange kind of evil animal, Mankind! Indeed, here the music and lyrics depict the human madness and its consequences: self-conceit, ruthlessness, disrespect and a fatal overestimation of the power of science lead to a natural disaster... The calm middle section conjure up the gloomy atmosphere of the day after while the drum beat of the final section come as a kind of funeral march.

The heartfelt, committed "Civiltà perduta" (Lost civilization) is a bitter complaint against human greediness and vanity. Men run after dreams of power and deceiving spectres that made them blind and unscrupulous, hate and terror become their myths, remnants of a civilization that celebrated its deadly rites to the gods of pride and stupidity. The bright sun of progress led men on a dangerous path and condemned them to doom, arid deserts now cover the land that once was green and blooming...

The delicate, dreamy "La dolce illusione" (The sweet illusion) is a sad, tormented reflection about a generation who lost every hope and now lives in the sweet illusion of a better future. It leads to the following "Smog" a frenzied track that describes in music and words the threatening shadow of a black, venomous cloud. You can feel here fear, anxiety and a sense of helplessness in front of another impending tragedy.

"Il verde" (Green) begins by hard electric guitar riffs and an almost martial pace. Then, melancholic vocals describe the systematic destruction of the forests, allowed by indifference and by political inertia. Men keep on committing the same errors condemning themselves to death... A bitter-sweet requiem to Mother Nature!

Next comes "Life In A Prison" a track that, despite the English title, is sung in Italian. It tells about the hypocrisy of artificial paradises built on sufferance and exploitation, chains and violence. You have to look for a way out... The music and lyrics of the dramatic "Epilogo" (Epilogue) seem to invoke the help of an extraterrestrial race, more evolute and wiser than humankind, just before the fatal return to naught.

Too late! "Dopo" (After) is a melancholic piano ballad that depicts a gloomy landscape made of lunar deserts... What have we done? The marching beat and a celestial choir evoke a sad farewell to humankind. The short closer "Uomo" (Man) features narrative vocals and poetical lyrics. It's just a final warning about an impending danger that maybe we are not able to see...

All in all, this is very interesting work, a labour of love that deserves a try!

You can listen to the complete album on deezer or spotify.

More info:

https://www.facebook.com/sfaratthons/ 

https://www.sfaratthons.it/

ABRUZZO and MOLISE

And now we head east, where we visit the regions ABRUZZO and MOLISE. Passing through the devastated city of L’AQUILA, we can listen to the prog influenced singer-songwriter Cristian Di Prospero (MySpace) and to his notes inspired by 2009 L’Aquila earthquake. L'Aquila is also home to the hard psychedelic The Whirlings (Facebook) while the near town of Avezzano is home to a young band called Nuova Divisione (Reverbnation). Then we reach the Adriatic coast and the province of TERAMO, which is home to Picaroon’s Spark (MySpace), Peripatetica (MySpace) and Clepsydra (MySpace), the latter from Giulianova, a town on the coast north of Teramo. A small centre in the province of Teramo, Isola del Gran Sasso d'Italia, in the Gran Sasso e Monti della Laga National Park gave brith to a particular artist, the painter Tonino Leandro Mirandi, a great prog fan, whose work includes many paintings inspired by Le Orme’s music (by the way, the avatar I use on the forum of progarchives.com is one of them, entitled Ritorno al nulla: verso la fine).

Heading south along the coast we reach PESCARA, the birthplace of controversial poet and writer Gabriele d'Annunzio. This city gave us Diapason, Preghiera di Sasso and Akron, a band formed in the nineties that released some albums for Black Widow Records. Today the best known band from this city are Areknamés (MySpace), that gathered in 2001 around composer and keyboardist Michele Epifani. The name of the band comes from the title of a Franco Battiato song on the album “Pollution”, although their main sources of inspiration are not Italian. Their eponymous debut album was released in 2003. With a second excellent album the band went further exploring the possibilities of mixing vintage instruments sounds and love for Seventies prog masters such as Van Der Graaf Generator or Genesis with new ideas and in 2010 they released a new interesting work, In Case Of Loss. Although in their overall sound you can listen to some echoes from the past hanging in the air, Areknamés are not just a clone of someone else playing by rote and trying to stir nostalgic feelings in their listeners, on the contrary, the song-writing of the leader Michele Epifani is absolutely brilliant.

By the way, Michele Epifani started also a side project featuring a more experimental sound called Subtilior (Bandcamp). Other bands from Pescara are Xenitia (MySpace), Insider (MySpace), Flower Time (Facebook), Ascer (Reverbnation), AllCost (Facebook), The Gift (Facebook) and Unimother 27 (MySpace). Then, still heading south we go to CHIETI, where we can listen to a band called Nuda Veritas (MySpace) and to the emerging Severed Garden (Reverbnation). Next stop is the nearby town of Ortona, where we can listen to Distillerie di Malto (MySpace).

Then, in Isernia we can listen to Quasar H7 (Facebook). We conclude our visit to Abruzzo and Molise in the province of CAMPOBASSO, home to Ifsounds (Official Website), a band that began life in 1993 under the name of If. Their album Apeirophobia was released in 2010 on the independent American label Melodic Revolution Records and is their best so far.