VA - Zarathustra's Revenge - Tribute To Italian Progressive Rock Of The Seventies (1997)

4 CD Box set from Mellow records devoted to recounting the wonderful 1970's Italian progressive rock scene... my personal favorite of all time. For those who turn your nose up at tribute albums in general may want to not read on... for the remainder you let me just say that this is a truly amazing and very comprehensive box set with some great musical allusion and colorful packaging. Bands covered include PFM, PIERROT LUNAIRE, NEW TROLLS, Le ORME, MUSEO ROSENBACH, NOMADI, BALLETTO DI BRONZO, BANCO, OSANNA, LOCANDA DELLE FATE, CELESTE, ACQUA FRAGILE, AREA, QUELLA VECCHIA LOCANDA, GOBLIN and many more. Although several key 70's Ital-Prog band are disappointingly not referenced here (ie. ROVESCIO DELLA MEDAGLIA, IL VOLO, SEMIRAMIS & LATTE E MIELE) it remains still in my eyes a thorough representation of this influential and highly creative era. Highlights are honestly far too vast to cover here but some tasty contributions I need to mention are made by: MAD CRAYON's symphonic cover of PIERROT LUNAIRE's "Sotto I Ponti", FINISTERRE's unbelievable live version of PFM's "Alta Loma Five Till Nine", FONYA (USA) and his powerful medley, A PIEDI NUDI's eye opening cover of Le ORME's "Era Inverno", 3Vel's jazz interpretation of IL BARICENTRO's "Trusciant", BEGGAR'S FARM's rich vocal acapella-like cover of PFM's "Dove... Quando" and even ARS NOVA's (Japan) CRIMSON-like interpretation of IL BALLETTO DI BRONZO's "Epilogo". Some bands have really had some creative fun with the music presented here and have manipulated and have actually re-presented the material with variations on the original themes and ideas. After all I think this is a much more progressive way to approach tribute albums! As mentioned above the packaging is quite exceptional with all 4 CD's bound in a hard cover with a lovely 40 page book covering the contents and philosophy of the box set. Of course the original versions are always the authentic gems, but if you are a true lover of 70's era Italian prog rock then this collaboration in tribute is a wonderful prized and welcome possession. In a world where so called "Prog-Experts" write book recounting the progressive rock genre and erroneously fail to make mention of the Italian scene, then it is a true relief and a testimonial to remind us all of how significant and rich the 70's Italian Progressive Rock scene really was.