Whenever I’m asked, I always say that Metamorfosi are just about my favorite Itaprog band. Yet I prefer their first album to Inferno; and Inferno, which I think came out around Christmas 1972, is the one that gets all the attention. These guys have earned the reputation of being Christian rockers, and they sure did some real Christian things on Inferno, like putting the politicians in the innermost circle of hell. Of course, my mild reservation regarding this record might stem from the fact that when I read Dante’s Inferno – you know, the book – I got so bored that my lower jaw began to detach from the skull. I mean, to all intents and purposes I read that book in its entirety, but I never did find out what the center of hell looks like. Someone told me it was really cold, maybe like you see on the cover here. Not that I mind this record – quite the contrary, the music is continuous, episodic, well-conceived, and deftly executed. If I were to choose a favorite concept album, this might be it, for it convincingly conjures up a Dantesque netherworld, not just sonically but consciously through the vehicle of progressive rock idiom, which it does much to characterize. While I might possibly like the other better, therefore, this is the Metamorfosi deserving of the classic epithet.

Just don’t ask me about the cover, ok? The name of the group, and the album that they put out in 1972, is Reale Accademia di Musica, which means “Royal Academy of Music.” Cool name, but not exactly in step with the times. So, the next time they recorded they gave the credit to Adriano Monteduro, a classical guitarist, who helped write the songs and sort of played along to the Academy’s instrumentation. By 1975, they were not taking any credit at all, rather they were playing supporting group to Nada, and not helping her to any more top ten hits either. Now, the vocalist of the Academy has a Polish first name and a Spanish last name, and he sounds pretty cool, but it’s like his voice is one of the instruments, since all the instruments are very clear, in perfect idiom (maybe a little too perfect, if what you’re looking for is something where you can say prog definitely yes and pop definitely no), well plausible to the listener, and carefully balanced.

So you’re thinking, hey, these Ita progrockers seem kind of misogynic, don’t they, running around pretending they’re all Beethovens or Tchaikovskys or something, and having these exclusive clubs, like, and leave the wife at home. Well, here’s a formation fronted by a pretty lady, and it gets wild, believe you me. Actually, this is the second Saint Just. It’s called La Casa Del Lago, and it came out in 1974. I’m showing you this one because I know you’ll like it, but you’ll almost certainly like the first one as well. The songs on these records have an undercurrent arriving from folk. To be sure, it’s influenced by the contemporaneous British progressive folk music, but it just doesn’t sound like that at all. There’s like gypsy in it, something coming from the east, yet right there as part of the everyday scene. I’m told that la casa del lago was a house on the shore of Lake Bracciano, near Rome, which served as the band’s comune.

Il Rovescio Della Medaglia – “the other side of the coin” – put out three fine albums of which the first, La Bibbia (“The Bible”), is definitely worth noting. It came out in 1971, a year that saw several contributions to the birth of Itaprog, if not actual examples of it. La Bibbia has most of the characteristic progressive traits and can perhaps be regarded as the ‘first truly’ progressive record from Italy. It is a ‘concept’ album with musical and thematic continuity based on the Book of Genesis; it is music for music’s sake, not fashion; and for variation it relies on contrasting passages, not ‘songs’. An ‘unprogressive’ trait is its instrumentation: a so-called ‘power trio’ of guitar, bass and drums, plus vocalist. Yet Itaprog never made any formal demands regarding instrumentation, and usually we find here the seemingly vulgar sound patterns of the power trio woven into the artistic concept, for example on the track “Sodom E Gommora”, leaving us with an overall impression that to carry off a rock music representation of Genesis, the power trio is the only appropriate vehicle. Some will find their third album, Contaminazione (1973), more congenial, but it doesn’t quite rock like this. Incidentally, if you have the LP of La Bibbia, be sure to make a cassette tape in case you destroy the vinyl.

I am sorry but we can’t spend any more time on this, so I’ve decided to do the right thing and give you a real tip, if you’re interested in Itaprog. I’m drawing your attention to Locanda delle Fate and their Forse le lucciole non si amano più from 1977. Because some of the reviews you see might suggest that it’s a personal thing with this record, that it’s just a matter of taste. When in fact it is a classic. The problem is, well, there are a couple of problems, one being that there was an earlier and well-liked band called Quella Vecchia Locanda. But more importantly, Locanda delle Fate came out after almost all the other prog bands had folded. So you might want to say that they weren’t a part of the Itaprog wave. But these guys certainly didn’t see themselves as an anachronism, and they added something significant to the genre. This was basically it for Itaprog, however, for punk rock had already paved the road for new wave.