Sunday 31 January 2016

Rovescio Della Medaglia. Il - Contaminazione (1973)


The third album from this Italian band.

Il Rovescio Delle Medaglia has recently made a bit of a comeback and has been touring. Their last album was released six years ago, back in 2010. That is all I know about this band who were not one of the RPI greats back in their golden days, but were bubbling under in the second division of the many bands from Italy and in that scene.

On this album, their most well known and loved album, they were a five piece band with keyboards, flutes, guitars, bass, drums and Italian vocals. There was also a fully blown classical music orchestra involved on this album.

Johan Sebastian Bach is a pretty central inspiration in the symphonic prog and the Rock Progressive Italiano scene. The most central inspiration besides of The Beatles, most will argue. This album is built around the Well Tempered Clavier piece from Johan Sebastian Bach. Without forgetting that this is a rock band and a rock piece, that is.

The music is pretty hard and pastoral at the same time. The keyboards are absolute brilliant here and takes us back four hundred years. The pieces of music here varies between harsh and pastoral. A bit like pop and a bit like hard rock. A lot like classical music at times, too.

This forty-two minutes long album is one of the classics in the RPI scene. It is also one of the boldest and most complex albums from that scene. It offers up some great melodies and great vocals. My only gripe is the lack of a truly superb piece of music. Besides of this small gripe, this is a great album which will forever stand the test of time.

4 points 

No comments:

Post a Comment