Spiritual Revolution (Tide Records, 2012)
When I saw an album listed as progressive rock, available at a progressive rock streaming site and a concept theme inspired by the Silmarillion by J.R.R.Tolkien, it seemed pretty interesting so I checked it out. Spiritual Revolution is the latest album by Italian rock band Sailor Free.
Spiritual Revolution narrates love between two beings who are aliens to each other. Love is described as an “inexhaustible source of energy.” The album opens in a very promising way, with a dreamy piece titled ‘Spiritual Ouverture’ featuring ambient drones, sound effects, and voices in various languages. There is a post rock sensibility combined with classic progressive rock and a little hard rock. The second part of the piece gets jazzier with piano, a beautiful flute by Stefano Ribeca and creative percussion.
After that, the band says ciao to progressive rock and presents a series of pieces that mix grunge, alternative rock and heavy metal riffing. There are interesting moments here and there, but not enough to qualify as progressive rock. Tack 5, ‘The Curse,’ has a good introduction until the hard rock riffing begins.
Things get a little more interesting on track 12, ‘Break th Cycle,’ with fine guitar, creative percussion and keyboards. The final piece, ‘a Great Hope,’ presents instrumental blues-rooted jam rock with progressive influences.
The band line-up on the album includes David Petrosino on vocals, piano, keyboards; Stefano “The Hook” Barelli on guitars; Alphonso Nini on bass; and Stefano Tony on drums.
Buy Spiritual Revolution MP3s
Buy the Spiritual Revolution CD in Europe