Band : AV Project
Album title : This Cemetary
Label : Casket Music – Copro Records
Distributor : PHD - Bertus
Release date : 21/09/2009
Release : CD

Italian native singer/ keyboardist Alberto Venturini is the main man behind this project, and also the “AV” in the band’s name. Son of two professional opera singers and horn teacher (and he actually gives away a short performance on that instrument on the album’s closing instrumental “S.F.”) graduated at the Conservatory at Reggio Emilia, he is now also a singing teacher at the Mucic Academy in that same town…and at the Arti e Suoni school of Parma. In this project he is joined by guitarist Jonathan Gasparini (also a member of the band Mamamicarburo and teacher at the CECAM school at Reggio Emilia), bassist Boggia Bernard (guitarist with Frontiera and Dark Lunacy), and finally drummer Gregorio Farrese (a graduated Jazz drummer whom majored in “theory” and “solfeggio”, who’s already recorded with the likes of John Taylor). Definitely no small-time boys, and a line-up due for great things…and yet, and yet…

While the band plays a very nice Hard Rock with atmospheric keyboard backings (switched towards piano in the calmer songs) and with an occasional Power Metal flavouring (the harder and more up-tempo tracks) which could really be fun to a lot of people…the vocals suck! Suck major big time! I mean, Venturini may be a singing teacher, but he should’ve made his lyrics in his native tongue, accents of which can not help coming through in the English language he chose this project to go for! Nah, when you hear the English language being abused like that, you start wishing for instrumental music! Feel like I’m being harsh? Just check out the stuff the band posted at myspace.com/avproject, and convince yourself (hopefully, the band put some of the ballads to make my point most poignantly clear, because in the “heavier” songs Venturini’s voice is occasionally passable)!

Of course, with Copro linked to Alkemist Fanatix (which IS an Italian promotion agency), they’re possibly bound by contract to release this album in the UK, but I simply cannot see anyone outside the Italian contingency in England actually going out to the record store to buy this kind of album. Then again…how would they ever get to know of its existence? I’m afraid radio programmers won’t go for this kind of badly sung music on their shows! Subsequently, the rating of the album suffers badly, truly badly, and while the music itself deserves a nice 88, the album overall only gets

74/100

Tony.