This album, the band's third, is even heavier than the other disc of theirs that I have, Creazione. This band's music is not what I typically think of as "Italian prog". A Piedi Nudi is much harder-edged, not the flowingly beautiful and melodic stuff I've come to expect from bands like PFM and Finisterre. Also, the instrumentation isn't as varied. They tend to stick mostly to drums, bass, guitar and keyboard. There is a bit of french horn here and there, but it doesn't really stand out. In fact, when I saw these guys at ProgDay and later at Orion Studios, I wondered why they didn't just do the few short french horn parts on the keyboards.I like their albums, but it's hard to really get a grip on them. The melodies and tempo shift almost constantly, and all the vocals are in Italian so English speaking listeners don't have anything to grab onto there. It's best to let the music wash over you and just experience the sheer power of it.
The electric guitar is the main instrument, blasting its way, hard-rock style, through almost every track. The keyboards are used mostly for coloration and mood, although there are a few interesting synthesizer leads. The electric guitar is used both for pounding out power chords and for playing intricate melodies. While the music does settle down occasionally for some quiet, relaxed, intimate passages, for the most part it screams along in head-ripping-off mode. But the mood and music changes far more often than in typical heavy metal.
The vocals are entirely in Italian. While Creazione was sung by the drummer, Carlo Bighetti, Eclissi features a full-time vocalist, Mirko Andreasi. But to be honest, I can't tell one from the other and never would have noticed the difference if I hadn't read the liner notes. At the live shows I saw, Carlo handled all the vocals from both albums. The singing is decent and even very good in spots, but I wouldn't buy the album just for the vocals. In places they even get a little grating as they wail away dramatically in Italian. But they never detract from the music.
I should also mention that Eclissi features some of the coolest packaging I've seen. From the H.R. Giger influenced cover (note the letters APN worked into the alien brain, or whatever that is) to the black CD which, when lifted, reveals that it was eclipsing a bright sun in the backing tray, the packaging was very well put together. The paintings inside the booklet are also darkly fascinating, featuring images such as a close-up of an eyeball with the reflection of a charging, knife-wielding monster and a mannequin lying dead with its strings cut and a pair of scissors in its hand.
Overall, I wish more progmetal were like this - proggy music that just happens to feature heavy guitar work rather than music that starts from a heavy metal base and adds virtuoso solos.
review by Bob Eichler — undated —
