REVIEWS:
Post your comments about Metamorfosi
(reviewed by Nick Karn)
HIGH POINTS: Introduzione, Lussuriosi, Razzisti, Violenti. LOW POINTS: None.
Now here's an unknown gem from the library of 1972 prog rock. As far as I know, METAMORFOSI (in all caps I think, right?) aren't even listed in the All Music Guide, and are largely known only by hardcore prog fanatics (and crazy Italians, of course), which is a shame, since these crazy guys have quite a cool vibe going on during this album. Of course, they don't have an overwhelmingly original style, but it's an interesting one anyway, pretty much an almost completely keyboard-dominated sound modeled after Emerson, Lake And Palmer (lots of wanking on piano, organ, Moog synthesizers, harpsichords and other assorted keyboards, and limited appearance of electric guitar), a vocalist that sounds exactly like a low-voiced opera singer, lyrics that, from what I've read about them, largely condemn people to Hell, and multi-part song structures arranged to flow like one large piece like "Thick As A Brick". They might be a cut below ELP in technical ability (though not by that much, really), Inferno still manages to entertain me more than any album - and most songs - by their most obvious influence, except Tarkus of course (because you cannot beat an album with an armadillo tank cover - you just can't).
As much as I really enjoy this vibe (which often brings atmospheric imagery of demented-looking figures in an icy landscape much like the album cover does), though, it's hard to figure out what else to say about this band. It's one of those albums where it almost seems impossible to separate the songs as individual entities (or sometimes notice when one track ends and another starts), and METAMORFOSI's sense of vocal melody writing is really not that strong at all, but while Inferno is on, it's really really exciting! I particularly love the incredibly well constructed and energetically epic keyboard/organ jamming that takes up huge chunks of the opening "Introduzione", the way it alternates between fast and slow bombastic parts and has some really neat moments like the one chopped up-sounding synth effect that sounds like insects buzzing around. That comes after your 'introduzione' to the opera singing guy in the first minute or so, of course, which might seem awkward and hilariously comic at first, but you'll probably get used to him after awhile, and a lot of the album is instrumental anyway. From then on, the gripping excitement doesn't let up.
Since it's incredibly difficult to describe these songs/parts individually, I'll just namecheck a few of my favorite moments, like the soaring ballad melody of the gentle harpsichord-laden "Lussuriosi" (very moving, and with the opera vocals at the same time hilarious), the simple but still awesome marching groove that the band jams on for a lot of "Razzisti", the rare appearance of evil distorted guitar in the aforementioned "Introduzione" complementing the piano/organ jamming (often the keyboard passages on this album almost all the time fill my head with a lot of different images, which Keith Emerson can only do to me on limited occasions), the bombast of the organ in the last minute of "Violenti" that gradually speeds up faster and faster until it just stops to make the transition into the bassline that starts off its' followup number "Malebolge" (a great example of a vintage climactic moment from 1972 prog), the convincingly anthemic vibes of "Caronte", the tumbling rhythm section interplay toward the end of "Sfruttatori", and the solemn, brief hymn-like "Conclusione" to the album.
Yeah, so in all, this is certainly a very cool and often energizing album that's well worth seeking out if you're a huge progressive rock and especially ELP fan, probably on MP3s the way I did it, since a hard copy of it seems to be very difficult to come by, unless you're getting it by an expensive import or are actually Italian or something. Which brings me to my next point that partly inspired me to review this at this juncture - the recent (in January of 2005) amazon.com messup where they had a whole bunch of albums that would normally be hugely expensive imports for a list price of 99 cents before they realized their mistake and started sneakily cancelling people's orders. Well, several of us on the Web Reviewing Community hangout board Music Babble ordered a whole crapload of albums, and a few on there (you know who you guys are, dorks! not that I'm not even more of one...) decided to indulge in a whole bunch of these Italian prog albums from the Phantom label's catalog that were a part of this fake deal, like from, say, Magma. Just an amusing anecdote that I wanted to pass along.
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