Saturday 16 December 2017

ORDER AND CHAOS

Minerva a Pezzi came to life in 2013 in Forlì from the meeting of four musicians inspired by bands with different styles such as Tool, King Crimson, Frank Zappa, Weather Report, Opeth, The Gathering, Pink Floyd, Karnivool, OSI, Radiohead, Genesis, Pantera, Massive Attack, Mars Volta, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, A Perfect Circle, Meshuggah, Zu, Porcupine Tree, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Gentle Giant and many others. In 2015 they self-released an interesting debut album entitled !φ (Not Phi) with a line up featuring Stefano Toni (lead guitar), Lorenzo Valentini (bass), Francesco Casadei Lelli (keyboards, synth, guitar) and Andrea Leoni (drums). According to the band, their music is inspired by urban confusion and by the contamination between different genres, they try to express the inner conflict between love and hate, wish and complaint, rational and irrational, order and chaos... Well, in my opinion, the dark, threatening art cover by Marco Sabbione in some way reflects the musical content of this instrumental work better than many words!


The nervous opener “Helpline” is an excellent piece that blends pulsing bass lines and fiery organ patterns, funky and classical music, dark, nocturnal atmospheres and evocative, dreamy passages. It could be the perfect score for a horror/thriller movie!

Minerva a Pezzi on stage

Next comes “Thassos” that features raw, heavy electric guitar riffs rising upon dark organ waves. Here there’s more chaos than melody while in the following “Flegma” a more relaxed, dreamy mood takes over. On “Cubo di Rubik” (Rubik’s Cube) tension rises again and here every now and again the music recalls the magic of Goblin’s deep colours. The nightmarish “Night’s Out” is in the same vein and alternates stormy dark clouds of sound to calmer passages.


The slow, dreamy “La giostra” (The carousel) and the long, mysterious “Ultimo giro” (Last lap) close an album that is worth listening to… Have a try! You can listen to the complete album HERE

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