Goblin Rebirth – The Safari Explores Italian Prog Again!

Goblin Rebirth – Rock Progressivo Italiano • Italy

It seems that lately I have been enjoying more and more bands that fall into the sub-genre of Rock Progressivo Italiano (See Armonite, Unreal City). The latest one is Goblin Rebirth. Their self-titled debut album has been in my rotation for a few days. It was even the soundtrack for a walk yesterday, back from the garage that was repairing my daughter’s car! It is a really good instrumental album.

Since the album was self-titled i thought Goblin Rebirth was a new band!! Wrong!! In reality they are what the name suggests, the rebirth of the band Goblin,whose roots go back to the mid-70s when  they collaboratied with Italian master of horror Dario Argento, scoring, a number of  Argento’s horror films such as ‘Profondo Rosso,’ ‘Zombi’ and ‘Suspiria.’ Goblin achieved immense success from this collaboration and achieved a legeneday status. The majority of their  music is heavy and moody with a Pink Floyd feel. The centerpiece of the band in the early years was the outstanding keyboard work of Claudio Simonett  Throughout the years in addition to the lastest reincarnation as Goblin Rebirth,,  the band has also been known as: Back to the Goblin, New Goblin,the Goblin Keys and Claudio Simonetti‘s Goblin! read more

Armonite -The Sun is New Each Day

Armonite: Rock Progressivo Italiano • Italy  –  Rating ****

Over the last few days, the album The Sun is New Each Day from the band Armonite has been in my music rotation. It is an interesting instrumental progressive rock album. The band has a distinctive sound generated mostly by the sound of an electric violin. That violin is being played by one of the two founding members of Armonite, Jacopo Bigi. Bigi and composer Paolo Fosso. Together they founded Armonite in 1996, while they were still in school.The band released its first album Inuit in 1999. After which the band broke up. Jacopo pursued a career as a classical violinist and violin teacher, while Paolo started working in music administration. In 2015 they reunited and formed a new band, but used the old name. read more

Unreal City – Il Paese Del Tramonto – Great Italian Prog Rock!

Last night I was checking out the New Progressive Rock releases at New Prog Releases. One of the albums of interest to me was Il Paese Del Tramonto (Country of Sunset) from an Italian Progressive Rock band Unreal City.  Their music was classified as Symphonic and since I have enjoyed other symphonic prog bands, I figured I’d like these guys. I figured right I put the album on while I was multi-tasking or as I like to call it ADDing! I was watching the football game, reading and listening! It didn’t take long to for the voices of Phil Simms and Jim Nantz to take a backseat to the keyboards Emanuele Tarasconi and Francsca Zantta’s guitar! (the decision was aided by the uncompetitive nature of the game, between the Colts and Pats! Ido believe, Unreal City would have lost out to the Packers and Seahawks!). Anyway I loved the album and today it became the soundtrack for my drive out Street Road to pick up my replacement hearing aid at Costco.  Listening to the album in greater detail only brought out the great keyboard and guitar work on the album, solidifying my opinion that this is a great album!! read more

Unreal City – Il Paese Del Tramonto – Great Italian Prog Rock!

Last night I was checking out the New Progressive Rock releases at New Prog Releases. One of the albums of interest to me was Il Paese Del Tramonto (Country of Sunset) from an Italian Progressive Rock band Unreal City.  Their music was classified as Symphonic and since I have enjoyed other symphonic prog bands, I figured I’d like these guys. I figured right I put the album on while I was multi-tasking or as I like to call it ADDing! I was watching the football game, reading and listening! It didn’t take long to for the voices of Phil Simms and Jim Nantz to take a backseat to the keyboards Emanuele Tarasconi and Francsca Zantta’s guitar! (the decision was aided by the uncompetitive nature of the game, between the Colts and Pats! Ido believe, Unreal City would have lost out to the Packers and Seahawks!). Anyway I loved the album and today it became the soundtrack for my drive out Street Road to pick up my replacement hearing aid at Costco.  Listening to the album in greater detail only brought out the great keyboard and guitar work on the album, solidifying my opinion that this is a great album!! read more

Ad Maiora! from Ad Maiora – Rock Progressivo Italiano

The phrase Ad Maiora means “to greater things” in Latin and that’s where, in my opinion,  the Italian Prog Rock band,  who chose that expression for their name, is headed.  Yes, based on their self-titled debut album. I think that Ad Maiora will be moving on to greater things!

The band was formed in 2009 in Milan, as a progressive rock project. During the period between 2009 and 2013 Ad Maiora was writing their own compositions, all of which appear on their debut album Ad Maiora! which was released in January of 2014. It was also in  this time period that the band contributed the track “Whaling Stories” to a Procol Harum tribute album, and played in support of  Italian bands like Ubi Maior and Shylock. read more

Progressivo Italiano from Italy’s Conqueror – Stems…no seeds

Conqueror – Rock Progressivo Italiano Italy
So yesterday, I was trying to organize some of my stuff around the computer and my work desk. My that’s tall order!! Anyway, I went to progstreaming and looked over the albums and chose the album Stems by Conqueror. As usual, I knew nothing about the band, except that the album cover looked kind of interesting. It took a few minutes before I stopped and said, “Hey, this is pretty good”  And as I listened, the album proceeded to get better and better.
About Conquueror

Conqueror is an Italian progressive rock band whose music is labeled as Rock Progressivo Italiano The band was founded by drummer Natale Russo (note if you translate their webpage from Italian to English Natale’s name becomes Russian Christmas!) in November of 1994. The band went through many line up changes between their formation and the release of their début album. The band released Insinto in 2003, the bad’s ninth year together.  Since then they released four more albums, making Stems the band’s fifth release. The band’s current line up includes..…. read more