Being motivated by a recent topic on progarchives,I decided to go back in time and re-listen NICOLA RANDONE’s debut,originally pressed in 2002.I remember voting for his second album as his best one,but after re-listening to ”Morte di un amore” I admit that it was very hard for me to find a weak point on it!
NICOLA RANDONE is an exceptional guitarist/vocalist (and a graphic designer as well), born in Ragusa in 1972 and currently living in Catania.From early 90’s Nicola had been involved in various musical projects and in 1998 his band ”Grey owl” released a succesful demo (”La parete di ghiacchio”) of 1000 copies.Unforunately this band didn’t manage to live on and Nicola decided to focus on a personal work,having fully developed his vocals and guitar work.This would come in 2002 as a private press under the poetic title ”Morte di un amore” (Death of a love).
http://www.progarchives.com/Review.asp?id=243340
RANDONE prooves to be not only a great guitarist and singer,but mainly a fantastic composer and arranger.Drawing influences by the romanticism of vintage Italian progressive rock,he presents a work of deep melodies,grandiose musicianship and intense emotions.This is pure symphinic progresive rock filled splendid vocals,superb guitars (both electric and acoustic) with nice breaks and harmonies,great classical piano passages and full-blown synthesizers with at times an ambient/spacey feeling.There are also undenieable elements of bands playing theatrical and lyrical progressive rock like GENESIS, ANGE, BANCO DEL MUTUO SOCCORSO, DORACOR or MARILLION,though all are nicely refined under Nicola’s own personal way of approaching music.The great thing about ”Morte di un amore” is that you won’t find a single track without a strong dose of high emotions and that is a thing that deserves our congrats!NICOLA RANDONE’s debut is nothing more than Italian symphonic prog at its best.Extremely highly recommended for being a modern masterpiece of progressive rock!
