IL BACIO DELLA MEDUSA: Imilla (PROGRESSIVE ROCK): review / opinion to read on Music Waves

Il Bacio Della Medusa is a band that likes to take its time, never putting less than four years between each album. Thus, in a career spanning almost twenty years, "Imilla" is only the band's fifth album, succeeding "Seme*" 5 years later. But as each production from the Perugian outfit is always a success, it's worth the wait.

"Imilla" doesn't break this fine tradition, but revives the concept albums abandoned with "Seme*". This time, Il Bacio Della Medusa sets out to tell us the story of Monica Ertl, a young woman who joins the Bolivian guerrilla movement and ends up being arrested, tortured and executed.

The album was entirely written by singer Simone Cecchini in an acoustic format, before being arranged by Diego Petrini. The album's genesis is evident in the predominance of vocals (as excellent as ever), leaving little room for purely instrumental parts, and in the structure of the tracks, which follow the conventional ABABCAB format (A = verse, B = chorus, C = bridge). The keyboards are virtually absent, but the lively drums give the tracks plenty of energy. Eva Morelli is more at home with her sax, in a shredded and sometimes strident VDGG-like register, than with her flute, although the latter does come in for a few delicate interludes. A few electric guitar solos, often short, allow new guitarist Andrea Morelli, Eva's brother, to give us the benefit of his feeling.

If the key word on "Seme*" was eclectic, "Imilla" is compact, the dark, aggressive tone rarely wavering and most tracks scrupulously following the song format, with the exception of the two "quasi-instrumental" tracks that open (the very curious "Un Visto per la Bolivia", with its kazoo and yodels) and close the album (the more conventional "Colt Cobra 38 Special", which repeats some themes heard previously). It's hard to pick out one track rather than another, as they all share the same structure, the same qualities (interesting compositions, impeccable interpretation, some fine instrumental highlights and quality arrangements) and the same limitations (few instrumental passages, limited to short soli without any digression, no rhythmic breaks and a relative lack of diversity).

Nevertheless, if "Imilla" proves to be the least progressive of Il Bacio Della Medusa's discography, it is nonetheless a work of quality for its density and the involvement of its performers. And the Italian band has the merit of offering something different every time, a talent far too rare to be overlooked. - Official website

IL BACIO DELLA MEDUSA

IMILLA

AMS/BTF

PROGRESSIVE ROCK