Normally Italian bands in rock/metal isn’t exactly my favourite, but with these
guys I have to make an exception – this is very good! And on top of that, like
with some of the albums that lasted longest by me, it gets better for every spin
in the player, so maybe there’s a basis for a long time favourite with this
album.
Moongarden started out as a band in the early nineties, and has had setbacks due
to “personal troubles”, and has gone through several line-up changes, latest
from the 2004-release Round Midnight to this one, replacing singer Luca
Palleschi with the original singer (and guitarist) Simone Baldini Tosi and
drummer Max Sorrentini with Maurizio Di Tollo. The band consist furthermore of
Marco Tafelli on guitar and violin, Mirko Tagliasacchi on bass and founding
member Christiano Roversi on keyboards and Chapman Stick.
The real strong part of this album is for me the overall mood of the album, the
flowing melodies, and the arrangements that draws the different instruments into
creating both mellow, epic and bombastic atmospheres. The violin is one of the
strongest contributors to this.
The weak part would then be the repetition in some of the tracks, and some
tracks simply not living up to the standard to be heard in the stronger
compositions of the album. Not knowing their previous work (4 albums) this is
said without knowing anything about their musical history, but it’s definitely a
band I have to check out some more, discovering some of their previous
recordings.
Allthough this is very much progressive rock, it also holds some pop-elements
that could probably make them popular in a broader public
Much can be said about the kind of artwork that appears on this album, and
though I don’t think it’s mandatory for a progressive/symphonic rock-band to
have a more or less surrealistic cover, it sort of defines the musical direction
to be expected of the album, so that’s okay with me.
Summing up this is a nice album, with it’s ups and downs, but if you’re into
progrock, try checking it out.
