Band : Fury 'n' Grace

Album title : Tales Of The Grotesque And The Arabesque

Label : Dragonheart

Distributor : Metal Blade – Rough Trade

Release date : 23/11/2007

Release : CD

Although this Italian band is only now releasing their debut album, it were formed as far back as 1994. Founded by the very different in musical taste 15 year-old friends Matteo Carnio (guitar, drew influences from the early '90s Grind/ Death scene with bands such as Slayer , Carcass , Napalm Death , Entombed ...and some of the highly experimental music that was goin' on at the same time; ref.: John Zorn , Naked City ) and Alessandro Del Vecchio (keyboards, into Classic and straight-forward Hard Rock alà Queen , Rainbow , Whitesnake ...), who find a common ground in Neo-Classical Heavy Rock. In the virtuosity of Baroque-like music, they find the reason for their own first musical attempts. Big examples are Deep Purple and Malmsteen , to which soon the Progressive Metal influence of Dream Theater and the Synth/ Prog of Symphony X will be added to make a perfect blend. First to join 'em was drummer Kiske "Wrathlord" (real   name Emiliano Bertossi ), well-known for his participation to Doomsword and Fiurach . Also beiing an adept of Death/ Grind initially gives a foreboding of the direction the band may go into. But then bassist Lorenzo Bassignani joins, bringing in his Jazz and Fusion interests. In Gabriele Grilli (later to front Doomsword as " Nightcomer ") they find the only possible vocalist!

On their first demo ( Theory , 1995), the band utilizes a second keyboard player in one Stefano Di Garbo , who's no longer with the band when second demo Loth Lorien comes out during the following year. With each musician participating in the writing of each composition, songwriting becomes a long process, as each member has some virtuosity to lay in the ever growing (in length) songs. Eventually, the songs would find balance. Occasional live appearances would give the band a cult status and following, and after four years the project is finally signed. But the contract leads to nothing as the resulting recordings (1998's Mephisto's Waltz ) are never released.

In spite of dire disappointment, the band continues on, writing new songs, and darker melodies and arrangements take the place of light naivetés. The compositions taking form are more complex, more violent, and more dramatic. Much of that is due to the fact that Bassignani is replaced by Gjallarhorn 's Christian Grillo , and to this new musician's main influences (coming from bands such as Megadeth , Pink Floyd , Type O Negative ). The band is offered a new contract, and they record the Inferno album in 2003, but due to sudden financial problems the label is unable to support or even (again) release the album...another album's worth of material down the drain!!!

Around that same time Del Vecchio starts up a new band, more melodic and easier, with Carnio and Grillo . Ironicallyy, this side-project doés get singed, and Edge Of Forever records two albums (2004's Feeding the Fire and 2005's Let the Demon Rock 'n' Roll ) which are both officially released by MTM Music . This fact soon becoming a stalemate for Fury 'n' Grace . Until Del Vecchio leaves the band in the first months of 2005, that is!

The remaining four now finally get a chance to find their true balance with a music that is devoid of keyboards, but therefore not without true technical prowess and lived experimentation from 12 years of experiences. Again, they set to work on a new set of songs...and lo!, for the band's music is finally recognized by a bona fide label with a tradition in high-quality Heavy and Power Metal acts with a mind of their own.

Now, to describe F'n'G 's music acurately would take an in-deep report on each song. Generalizing, one might call the band's music a Millenium version of a '70s Prog Rock band, with all the freaky experimentations that were occasionally typical for some of the bands of that age (always considering that the so-called "experimental" passages with THIS band are all based on year-long experience in that field, and are therefore simply further exhibits of the musicians' technical abilities), and that each musician gets his chance to display his technical prowess, at seperate instances as well as throughout "verse" sections. And when I'm saying éach musician, I'm also including the singer, who gets to flex his voice throughout his lyrics (and you see, the absense of keyboards enables each "instrument" to come through in the mix at maximum force without hindring the other!). Tracks, as mentioned earlier are all lengthy. In fact, I gather the band decided to split up the album opening track "Grotesque And Arabesque" into a "trilogy" (although the separate sections seemlessly flow into each other) quite on purpose, in order to not scare the listener off right from the start. You see, the track's total length is 15:31. First part of the trilogy, the 7:16 album title track, already has enough flexibility and goes through several stages of pace and intensity, both vocally and musically...and now here's some good news: you can listen to a complete mp3-file of the track at myspace.com/furyngraceband (you can also watch a video of same on youtube – posted at the band's website furyngrace.com). The 3:03 mid-section "Coma" is really one of those passages where the bassist and guitarist use their experience with "experimentation" to create sounds not normally heard from their instruments. On this particular track, there's even some effect used at the beginning of the vocal instrusion (which is otherwize very sparce and evidently rather sedate, seen the track's title). The 5:12 closing section of the album opener, titled "The Imp Of the Perverse" , sees the band coming back in full strength. Thanks to a repeat-verse in the lyrics, this is probably one of the easiest songs of the album!

Right, I could go on for each track on the album, but as you may gather that would really take up a couple of pages, especially because there's a total of 67:27 of music to talk about! I feel nevertheless the need to emphasize that personally, I've found NO instant at which I was thinking that the band was getting long-winded in the length of their compositions. Not even the 16:37 " The Buried" (which opens with a very weird use of piano – I'm guessing someone partly played on the strings, as well as on the keys – and ends using a bit of cello) managed to see my attention span falter for even ONE second! Closing the album with that rather short (2:42) and very calm "Maldoror" (shall we call it a ballad? After all it's just vocals and acoustic guitar!) was something of a surprise at first, but turns out to be essential to the overall concept of the album!

Each listening session reveals more details of each instrument, and frankly it's difficult to concentrate on just the one instrument throughout, because there's always sudden great things goin' on elsewhere. Also, the less experienced listener will nééd a few listening sessions to really get into the flow of things (meaning, it's not exactly an "instant appeal"-thing with these guys). In the end, it's that "complexity"...let me re-phrase that: it's the musicians' (including singer) great technical ability and versatility which makes their material timeless. Well, maybe that's not the correct way to put it either, because I can't imagine any songs of theirs ever making the hit parades! Let's just say it makes the band unforgettable, and for the moment I cannot conclude this review but by nominating Tales Of The Grotesque And The Arabesque into that list of "Best Albums Of 2007"!

98/100

Tony.