| CD REVIEW Souls Of Diotima |
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Band : Souls Of Diotima Based in Sassari (NW of Sardinia), Souls Of Diatoma (short= SoD, “diotima” probably referring to the planetoid which moves in a steady course between Mars and Jupiter) formed in 2004 with a line-up that stabilized one year later around singer/ bassist Renato Pinna, guitarist Pierguiseppe Coraduzza, and drummer Giorgio Pinna. July 2005 saw the outfit take part in the regional selections for the Sanremo Rock Festival, and being chosen among the 10 best bands from Sardinia, they eventually made it to the finals of the festival in Ravenna, North-Italy (by the Adriatic Sea) in October. In between the band of course continued to play gigs in the neighborhood of their home town and in December '05 the band participated to the 5th Faber Fabricio De André Award event. In 2006 the band started composing new songs for a first 5-track release, and in July the band again participate to the Sanremo Rock Festival, making it to the finals in Faenze (some 25 km West from Ravenna). 2007 is the year in which female singer Claudia Barsi joins the band, but it remains uncertain to me whether she contributed to the Souls Machine mini-album, released later in the year. In April the band had already finished runners-up at the Sedini Rock Contest, and a month later they play at Your Music Blog. Award winning director Francesco Facchinetti then picks the band's song “Silenzio” to serve as background music for his own website. 2008 sees the band win the North-Sardinian festivals Newsound (in July) and the Note D'Estate festival(in September). In October 2008 the band's last line-up change took place with keyboardist/ violin player Andrea Pinna (third member of that name...would they be brothers, or otherwize related?) joining the ranks, and the guitarist being replaced by the twin team of Salvatore Moretta and Marco Fozzi. 2009 saw continued success for the new line-up, winning first places at Sedini Rock Festival in April, Newsound and Bulzi Rock Festival in August, and the Note D'Estate event in September. In May the band started the recording process of Maitri, recordings which would last a whole year...but by February 2010 SoD already signed to Casket Music/ Copro Records. That same month the band is invited to Milano to play live on Rock TV, a show on the Sky TV channel. During Summer the sextet continued to win band contests, and in August the band played at London's Monto Water Rats venue. In October the song “Killing My Enemies” (featuring additional rough vocals by Renato Pinna) is picked for the L.A. based compilation album Kill City 25. December saw the band play support to DGM, and the new year was started by premiering the video to “Killing My Enemies”. That's the story so far. Apparently the album was planned to be released in December of last, but then more than just one release meant to be released through Copro last year has been delayed. Stylistically speaking, SoD's music takes influence from such bands as Dream Theater, Nightwish, Epica, Stratovarius, Angra, and more of that ilk...and it's therefore not surprising to find 'em playing a Symphonically enhanced Progressive Power Metal. The female lead vocals give it an additional twist, the more because Claudia stays away from any Opera inclinations, and simply gives the best of her own voice rather than try it out at something in which she would probably fail. By the way, for an Italian lady, Claudia's English singing is amazingly devoid of the typical Mediterranean accent which so many bands from the area suffer from. To get acquainted with the band's music, check above mentioned video (full-length) and samples of 2 other songs (one the title track, which gets inclusion of some nice keyboard-generated flute sounds in both intro and outro) on the 10-track album (first track being a short instrumental intro into the following song) at (www.) myspace.com/soulsofdiotima. Love it or leave it, but if you're into this kind of music, you definitely should check out the posted songs. 88/100 Tony. |