Attention piano lovers!
Début album from the first keyboard player Enrico Filippi from fellow Italian group Aliante (whom I happen to adore), venturing off into a new project by adding an athletic rhythm section composed of Jacopo Morandi on bass as well as drummer Giacomo Putrino. While Teodicea is definitely a trio, the music is entirely instrumental, so any overt comparison to ELP is unhealthy and to be immediately forgotten. The band’s name explained from their press release: “Teodicea (Theodicy – “God’s justice”, from the Greek theos, god and dike, justice) is a branch of philosophy (theology) that studies the relationship between God’s justice and the presence of evil in the world. The album “Il mondo esausto” (The Exhausted World), as the title suggests, is the group’s vision of the contemporary world that tends to give, deprive and engulf emotions to the human being, making the latter afflicted by the feeling of powerlessness in the face of the impossibility of being able to realize in reality what the mind conceives or desires. The pieces will touch in a completely personal way the emotion and sensation that each track suggests, frenzy, delicacy, frustration, resignation, hope, joy. The listener is accompanied in this emotional vortex that no one can deny experiencing from time to time”.
On a personal note, my 50+ year prog adventure of learning has finally arrived at the consecration of one glorious instrument that I once took for granted in my teens, impressed with the new synthesizer technology, I guess. In the past decade or so, the piano has become my sacred sanctuary (both the grand and electric piano, I might add), a fascinating implement that conglomerates perfectly melody and rhythm, often hand in hand (left and right LOL). There is plenty of this magnificence on Il Mondo Esausto.
The riveting appeal of the opening track “Gioia e Risoluzione” lays the groundwork for a magnificent ride into the highly lyrical, emotional and passionate beauty of the entire album. The initial motif is crushingly eloquent, the piano seducing the warm bass into the fold, a gentle percussion uniting it all, in establishing a joyful theme of hope and salvation. A second tour infuses a rousing Hammond organ sound, the bass guitar now carving with audacious abandon and the rhythm elevated into a faster pace. Inevitably, a suave synth line layers another coat of luxuriant notes, before veering off into a bass solo and a reappearance of the initial piano theme. Not to be outdone, the organ and synths return for a spotlight second helping. Bravo!
With a hint of the Duncan Mackay style of keyboard magic, “Il Viaggio del Moro” is just as ambitious an undertaking as the intro piece, a vortex of assorted keyboard structures, pulling along a clearly defined melody, where piano, organ and synth get to race to the finish line, undeterred. Highly cinematic with its almost breathless pace, the sonic movement holds very little back, as a majestic theme suddenly appears out of the blue, the piano painting a beautiful canvas of notes that dares to aspire to celestial heights. In typical prog style, variations keep things adventurous, shifting the same basic melody to elevated levels, as best exemplified by a sizzling lead synthesizer flight, right out of Tony Banks’ bank! Technique and feel, together as one.
Speaking of Banks, “Ineluttabile” is the owner of a syncopated reflection of a wonderfully acrobatic synth motif, a twisted, twirled and searching vehicle, waiting for the incoming piano and organ with expectant glee, as both shine gloriously. The focus is on delivering pleasing sounds, nothing is over the top, dissonant or needlessly far-fetched, just solid melodic playing that leaves the listener imagining their own mental scenarios, a truly worthy gift to the audience.
“Intro 422” is where Jacopo Morandi gets to participate in creating an absolutely colossal melody with Enrico’s elaborate piano. Tingling bells and wobbly synths add detailed ornamentation, the electronics taking over and screeching with unrestrained prowess, a master class in restraint, kneeling at the shrine of harmonious expression.
The magical expanse of this Norwegian Arctic Archipelago is described musically on the breathless “Lofoten”, a warm piano melting the icy cello orchestrations with intense flair. Like a synthesizer flying drone, the band takes us on a visual flight beyond the peaks and valleys, dipping near the famed red coloured houses and then flutter into the wider iceberg-dotted sea.
Breezy pace on “Ripresa di Coscienza”, where swaying elongated strips of silky sound enchant and astound, lovely reverberations that ultimately please the mind. When Enrico ravages his organ with a dual assault of the now familiar theme, the bass bopping madly in the undertow, the syncopation keeping pace, one cannot help but smile at the prowess involved.
Why not shuffle into a jazz-rock/fusion on “Punto di Fusione”? The piano/cymbal work certainly is a page taken straight out of the jazz school but only until massive waves of mellotron flings the arrangement into a typical symphonic prog mode, where the piano nevertheless still rules, rifling, pounding and flexing together with the whirring Hammond tone. Bliss.
The pain of the universe is ideally extoled on the forlorn “Weltschmerz”, a revelatory slice of imposing attraction, desperately romantic, and incredibly à propos. Again, the black and white ivories dance under Enrico’s nimble fingers, constructing an opaque mood that hits hard, conjuring a million images, each one in the ears of the beholder, personal and prescient. The final seconds are crushing.
Closing out this debut on an inspiring note, the rousing, organ-driven, mellotron-drenched “777” seals the deal on this masterful album, as Enrico, Jacopo and Giacomo combine their respective talents in creating a cohesive, refined, stylistically impeccable display of progressive rock. As befits a closing piece, this falling curtain of velvet unites all the qualities this band seems to offer in spades, the pipe organ spotlight as a perfect example of their detailed outlook to keeping everything exciting and pleasing at all times.
I always hesitate to give the highest accolades to a debut album, but I must confess Enrico’s past career with Aliante eliminates my fears of putting the bar too high! I expect future releases from this new band from Italy!
5 exhausted universes
