It
doesn’t occur to me quite often that I intentionally decide not to listen
to a certain cd for a couple of days in order to review it without being too
enthusiastic, but this really happened to me after listening to
‘Elementi’ by Italian progband ‘Le Orme’. This album contains loads
of extraordinary pieces of pure symphonic rock in the best tradition of
bands such as Genesis and ELP. At the same time, this is my first
acquaintance with a band that exists since the late sixties…shame on me ? The
main idea for this album was creating a musical scenery for the four
elements (wind, earth, water and fire) by means of relatively short songs
(only one of them exceeds the 5 minutes limit) linked one to another by
recurring but constantly alternating themes. There seems to be an infinite
abundance of exquisite melodies and soundscapes, due to the superb skills of
all four musicians. Yet their music seems to have been established in a very
natural way which makes this album a very pleasant and easy one to listen
to. Wind
The
instrumental ‘Danza del vento’ is a perfect opener for this album : the
intro is soaked with triumphant sounding synths, but Michele Bon pushes the
song to an extremely exhilarating piece of symphhonic rock in the vein of
Genesis, stirred up by the rhythmic backbone of ‘Le Orme’ : Aldo
Tagliapietra on bass and Michi dei Rossi on drums. ‘Il
vento, il cielo e la notte’ is a more lyrical song with nice vocals and
acoustic as well as electric guitarplaying by Tagliapietra, flavoured with
Andrea Bassato’s violin. There is a perfect balance between more intimate
sections and exuberant outbursts of genuine symphonic rock, which eventually
leads us to the second part of ‘Danza del vento’. Earth
Threatening
oriental sounds soon make way for a lively piece of Hammond in ‘Danza
della terra’. ‘Risveglio’ apparently seems to be a very simple song,
but it includes some nice surprises such as Michele Bon’s using of the
guitar simulator in the opening section of the song. The closing section is
characterized by a very tasteful layer of symphonic soundscapes. ‘Canto de
preghiera’ appears to be a Gregorian chant, until Andrea Bassato (on
pianoforte) pushes the song into another direction, thus providing us with a
clear example why this music NEVER gets boring : the course of the musical
flow is constantly altered by adding new elements. Subsequently the
atmosphere of one song certainly is not a static process. ‘Lord
of dance’ is sung in English (the other songs in Italian) and is, once
again, a breathtaking example of powerful but melodic progressive rock.
Water
‘Danza
della pioggia’ is Andrea Bassato’s ‘moment de gloire’ on pianoforte
: a classical theme that brings in the calm…‘Dove tutto è !’ is built
around a simple but irresistible melody, wonderfully coloured by sitar and
violin. The song gently slides into ‘Luce dorata’ with organ and synths
leading the dance this time. Fire
Ebullient
Hammond evoke a jazzy atmosphere in ‘Danza del fuoco’ and setting the
right pace for ‘Il respiro’ with some frenzy piano playing here. The
main theme is once again repeated in the third part of ‘Danza del vento’
in what is nothing less than another gem of progressive delight which leads
us to the final chapter of this fantastic musical journey : ‘Risveglio’
(ripresa) is the album’s ‘Grande Finale’ (including some tubular
bells) by summing up all the best elements of this stunning musical
experience. And
that’s not all : an honourable mention goes to Paul Whitehead, designer of
the artwork on ‘Elementi’. He once did the same job on ‘Trespass’,
‘Nursery crime’ and ‘Foxtrot’. He undoubtedly has to be the fifth
element… Reviewed by : Piet "Neal" Michem |
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