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

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.