genre: heavy sympho prog
country: italy/slovenia
quality : lossless (ape, cue, log, booklet scans)
time: 45'01" size: 288 mb
Gepr:
Devil Doll are an Italian band who sound nothing like the archetypal Italian progressive music at all. No fusion or lush symphonics here! What they offer is a very unique blend of gothic imagery and Victorian "Jekyll and Hyde" ambience, spun over a collage of piano, tortured vocals, sinister accordion folk music interludes, choirs, violin and waltz themes. The dynamics of the music is outstanding and never clumsy ... it moves between diverse elements with skill and power. The vocals may not be to the liking of some as there is a lot of them and they are more whispered/screamed than sung, in general. They fit the music perfectly though. The Girl Who Was ... Death is a conceptual work based on the cult UK series "The Prisoner" and takes it's name from one of the episodes. It demonstrates the maturity to come and has a little more (but not much) in the way of powerful rock sections. Mr Doctor also deigns to sing normally occasionally! Lots of accordion, violin and harp. A rock opera? Both Eliogabalus and Sacreligium are excellent works of extended progressive gothic "opera," for want of a better term. Highly metaphorical story-telling is important to the band's approach ... for example, Sacreligium tells the story of a man in his grave looking back over his life, complete with the closing of the funeral as a bonus after the music has finished! Devil Doll excel at creating atmosphere with very sparse instrumentation ... Mr Doctor, the enigmatic and unidentified band leader, employs his idiosyncratic vocal style to add to this. It may sound peculiar but I can hear a Marillion influence. I know that sounds strange given the description above but Marillion hinted at this sort of style on their early albums but never pulled it off explicitly or in such a grandiose and effective manner. Don't get the wrong idea though ... Devil Doll are not what you'd call a neo-prog band at all. I'd wholeheartedly endorse the view that Devil Doll are amongst the world's finest progressive acts of the '90s.
1. MR. Doctor ... (20:30)
2. Eliogabalus... (24:40)
- MR. Doctor / man of 1000 voices, organ, piano, celesta, accordion
- Edoardo Beato / piano, keyboards
- Roberto Dani / drums
- Katia Giubbilei / violon
- Rick Bosco / drums
- Albert Dorigo / guitar
- Bor Zuljan / guitar
WITH:
- Jurij ToniI / tuba
- Paolo Zizich / duet "THE MIRROR" WITH MR. DOCTOR
THE DEVIL CHORUS conducted by Marian Bunic
(Paolo Zizich / Marian Bunic / Polona Sever / Beti Roblek / Helena Pancur / Gregor Oblak / Jure Strencan / Borut Usenik / Valentina Blazinsek / Mr. Doctor).
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