Ma.ra.cash

Five years after their acclaimed “Did Swans ever see God?”, Submarine Silence, the romantic symphonic side project founded in the late 90s by Cristiano Roversi and David Cremoni of Moongarden, is now back with their fifth work called “Atonement Of A Former Sailor Turned Painter”, a concept album where the most classic sounds of the 1970s merges in a perfect balance with those of the new and best symphonic progressive rock of these last decades. As a further highlight in the turning point which “Atonement Of A Former Sailor Turned Painter” represents, the presence of Roine Stolt (The Flower Kings) in the opening track “Majestic Whales” for the first time on an Italian progressive rock album.

Homunculus Res, a fantastic Italian prog band with strong Canterbury Scene elements is back with a new album, after their phenomenal work from 2020 "Andiamo in Giro di Notte e ci Consumiamo nel Fuoco". "Ecco l'impero dei doppi sensi" is the name of the new album, and here, the band successfully brings a combination of Canterbury that perfectly implements elements of psychedelia, tinged with jazz and progressive, but also gives a dose of pop from the sixties. Ironic and oblique, evocative but also meticulous, the compositions represent a perfect union of the aforementioned styles. All these are elements of fundamental importance for the sonic alchemy of the band. A production where pop, prog rock and jazz sensibilities are combined with a pinch of avant-garde with that sound that is typically English, but a dose of RPI also appears. The album is cleverly constructed, basically like a journey through time from the late sixties to the mid- seventies. It is important to say that the band found a perfect compositional balance and presented a transitional style between pop cheerfulness and hippie-psychedelic lightness.

Formed in May 2009 and boasting current and ex members of notable modern Italian progressive groups such as Il Bacio della Medusa, Taproban, DAAL, The Watch and Prowlers, Fufluns (named after the Etruscan God of nature, health and growth in all things) is led by Medusa frontman Simone Cecchini, and the group perform melodic song-based Italian pieces in a lightly symphonic prog manner fused with gentle traces of the Italian canzone d'autore (singer-songwriter) storytelling tradition and plenty of that pure RPI fire worked in as well. Instrumental passages are frequent, but the tune itself is always the most important facet, and it makes for an interesting and beautifully played debut work full of character and charm.

From the prog loving folks over at MaRaCash comes Metafora di Un Viaggio, the album from Italian progressive rock veterans Sezione Frenante. These guys have been around in one form or another since the early '70s, and much of this latest album will instantly appeal to fans of acts such as PFM, Banco, Locanda delle Fate, Le Orme, and Biglietto per L'Inferno. That's right, gorgeous Italian symphonic prog, littered with soaring vocals, vintage styled keyboards, tasty guitar, fat bass lines, and tight rhythms. Just listen to Mirco de Marchi's commanding Hammond organ & Sandro Bellemo's beefy bass on the excellent "Attesa", or the heavy rock guitar riffs courtesy of Doriano Mestriner doing combat with those lovely keyboards on the engaging "La Quiete in un Attimo". Spectacular stuff…

The band comes back to a previous original formation asset which is less orchestral than in the recent past. News apart, the two imperatives of the band music remain : no imposed rules and to change continuously the compositional approach.
The album contains 8 tracks for more than 60 minutes of music. Each track represents a painting of the daily life. The link among the tracks is the passing of the time that change continuously the reality perception. It requests a different way to face and to consider the events: to recollect imagines after visiting places that in the tranquillity of the memory remain shrouded in their beauty; to think over the value of little gestures that, day by day, grow in relevance and are relived with the nostalgia of who still has looking for them, in the present.