The Lineup of Andy Tillison (The Tangent/Po90), Jonas Reingold (The Flower Kings/Steve Hackett Band/Karmakanic) and Roberto Tiranti (New Trolls/Ken Hensley/Labyrinth) is a pan European Progressive Rock Band project and the album was recorded during lockdowns in Italy, Austria and the UK.
The album ‘Allium: Una Storia’ is a concept album which takes as its subject a real band, Allium, that Tillison saw play (and jammed with) in Italy when he was a teenager in the mid 1970s.
“One afternoon spent with this band was enough to decide my career for the rest of my life” says Tillison, who subsequently spent a long time searching for any information about them.
“It was the first time I saw and touched a synthesiser; it was the first time I ever saw an electric band play. It was a golden moment on a holiday camp in Italy that has been an influence on every recording I have ever made in the past 46 years.”
The new band –TRT-‘s album is an imagining of the record Allium might have made. Written in the style of the music that they played, the band were joined by Italian lyricist Antonio De Sarno (Moongarden, Barock Project, Mangala Vallis) who, in keeping with Tillison’s original music, wrote the kind of lyrics that might have been penned by Allium at that time.
All members of the band have contributed to the songwriting since inception. The album, whilst paying homage to this and many other forgotten Rock Progressivo Italiano bands, is all original material written in 2021.
Right, that’s the publicity blurb and the background out of the way, the main question is, is it any good?
The album consists of three tracks and is just over forty minutes long. I’ll give you my initial feelings first, the way I felt when I first listened all the way through and what I told Andy when I discussed it with him…
The feeling I get from the music is one of pure unfettered joy, it takes me back to when the world was a much more simple place. It literally does just take me away to a another place in my head and I just smile every time I listen to it.
Andy told me, “Like you, I find the modern world exhausting, I feel more and more like I’m in a dystopian story every day. So a bit of my own memory of more joyful times has helped!”
It certainly shows on this album, it just feels as if it was created naturally, with love and just a in a really relaxed way, it’s a feeling of freedom and no constraints, the album will be ready when it is done and not before.
“I have always found, at least since the Prog Glory Days that Italian Prog was almost the “real thing”. It’s not that Crimson and Yes and Emerson didn’t develop the style, they certainly did, but it was the Italians who really coalesced the style into the most diverse and free thinking forms. Even bands I love like Camel, Genesis, even ELP themselves were often left standing by The Italians. They hadn’t had much truck with Rock Music.. but when Prog arrived, we were on their turf.”, Andy went on to say.
So it’s that Rock Progressivo Italiano vibe brought right up to date for our modern times but music to give you some relief from the complexity of modern life. The swirling, sweeping keyboards that are are signature of Mr Tillison are present and correct and Jonas’ bass is as smooth and stylish as ever, his excellent electric guitar playing skills are also much evident on the album too but what makes this hugely different from what has gone before are Roberto Tiranti’s mesmerising vocals which, like all the best foreign language singers, make the lyrics less important than the actual way in which they are delivered, his voice is like an additional instrument. They add a bit of innocent naivety to the songs and take you back to the sepia tinged hue of a nostalgic 1970’s and, boy, have I longed to be somewhere like that quite a few times over the last eighteen months!
The three songs are the side long epic Mai Tornare and the two shorter tracks Ordine Nuovo and Nel Nome Di Dio and usually at this point, I would go into further detail about each one but, this time, I’m not. This album is a listening experience that should be consumed in one sitting, in the fashion of the 70’s and not dipping in to one track and going back later to listen to another.
Is ‘Allium: Una Storia’ an antidote to the lockdown and everything associated with it? Well I wouldn’t want to make a claim that huge and I don’t think Andy, Jonas or Roberto would thank me if I did! No, it is a joyous expression of music, as, deep down at its core, it should be. Simple but perfectly formed and harking back to the days when music just put a smile on your face, this is one album that deserves success just because of how it makes you feel and I love it for that.
The album is set for a SUMMER 2021 release and is available on Reingold Records. pre-orders are available at Jonas Reingold | Webshop