Montefeltro | id

MONTEFELTRO originated in the early 90's when an Italian keyboard/guitar duo, namely Piergiorgio Ambrosi and Attilio Virgilio, joined forces with a couple of guest musicians and wove some fine symphonic prog in the style of LE ORME and PFM. Their roots, admits guitarist Virgilio, are many but lie chiefly with GENESIS. Although the separate members have kept busy on various projects during the 90's, the band has only released two official albums todate, one in 1992 and the other in 2001 - the nine-year gap being a reflection of personnel changes as well as Virgilio's own full-time job as an architect. The name MONFEFELTRO, by the way, came to him when, as a university student, he was inspired by the Palace of Duke Federico of MONFEFELTRO. The band's material ranks up there with the best Italian prog; in fact, LE ORME's keyboard player, Antonio Pagliuca, is said to be quite a fan and even to have given the members of MONTEFELTRO a few tips.

With their first album "Il Tempo di Far la Fantasia", MONTEFELTRO built a magnificent symphonic fresco whose main attraction lies in the 22-minute epic opener. The music is mostly delicate, atmospheric, even pastoral at times, with a few medieval accents; it is rarely aggressive. The vocals, which often take a back seat to the instrumentals, are sung in Italian and are very poignant. Their second album, "Il Pesce Rosso, Vestito alla Werther, Mangio' L'uva Il 1° Dell'anno", which features guitarist Virgilio as the only original member, goes beyond symphonic prog as it includes some jazzy accents and world music as well. Albeit a little different, it still reminds the listener of the better Italian bands mentioned above.

Highly recommended to Italian symphonic prog lovers such as BANCO DEL MUTUO SOCCORSO, PFM, LE ORME, EZRA WINSTON.

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