Search - Banco Del Mutuo Soccorso :: Di Terra

The most underrated album by BMS and one of their best ones!

Lethe | Milan, Italy | 05/08/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is the most underrated album by BMS;honestly it is worth 4 stars and 1/2, because there's a change of route in their execution, regarding of their new style, which sometimes let us remain a bit perplex!!However despite of lacking the vocals by Di Giacomo, the instrumental excursion (all along its duration)is stunning...it's a sort of mix between the symphonic stuff by Zappa and the jazzy style at the piano by Keith Emerson, in the period of "Brain salad surgery", by avoiding the excesses of virtuosity!! The compositions at the piano by Vittorio Nocenzi are tasteful as usual and the real orchestrations are perfect and well balanced!!This is my favourite album by Banco, despite of being less ambitious in comparison for example to "Darwin" or "Io sono nato libero"; and the only defect is the absence of Di Giacomo...Highly recommended!!"

Different from the usual Banco

BENJAMIN MILER | Veneta, Oregon | 03/03/2002

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Di Terra, by Banco, was originally released in 1978 on the Dischi Ricordi label, this, in fact is their first album for the label since Io Sono Nato Libero (they recorded for Manticore, just like PFM for a short while, but apparently Manticore went belly up by the time of Di Terra). If you are bothered by Francesco di Giacomo's singing, you'd probably think Di Terra is their best album, since he's not even here and the album is all instrumental. Perhaps the biggest surprise is how different this sounds to the usual Banco album is they use an orchestra. The orchestra is in that style that could easily fit on movies. The album often bears a resemblance to Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells, especially the fact the fuzz lead guitar is very much in the style of Oldfields, something I'm not accustomed to hearing on a Banco album. There are times that this album reminds me of ELP's Works Vol. 1, especially because of the orchestra, other times it sounds (unsurprisingly) like Banco's instrumental passages, there are some jazzy and experimental passages as well. It's quite a fascinating listen, although I thought their earlier material was better."