Nostalgia

Hailing from Sanremo, Italy, NOSTALGIA was created in 1992 by guitarist Massimo Mazzeo, a Canterbury style enthusiast, and his friend guitarist/keyboard player Andrea Romano, a passionate CAMEL fan who also was very much into VAN HALEN, AL DI MEOLA and SANTANA. It is their common love for CAMEL that brought them together in 1982 to form a duo called ODEON. With the addition of various members, they evolved into NOSTALGIA and performed live, doing a mixture of cover songs and original material. The band has since released three albums of their own in addition to appearing on 3 tribute albums: GENESIS tribute «The River of Constant Change»; VDGG tribute «Eyewitness»; and CAMEL tribute «Harbour of Joy». The name NOSTALGIA was chosen by guitarist Mazzeo, partly in homage to a DAVID SYLVIAN song from his «Brilliant Trees» album.

Considering their CAMEL influences, their style is highly melodic and focuses more on the overall sound than individual prowess. The album features lots of acoustic guitar that gives their music folkish overtones (as in English folk), some nice keyboard flights and English vocals. Their strong point is their knack for writing smooth, simple, memorable melodies; their weakest point is perhaps the absence of a real drummer although to be fair, their use of digital drums is most discrete. «Never Too Late» is a nice debut album but their second, «Is Your Spirit Free?», is even better, with its prominent acoustic guitar, nostalgic piano and smooth female vocals that will likely remind you of early 70’s English bands (the STRAWBS first come to mind). As for the equally charming «Welcome to Edo’s Land», their third release, it ends with a couple of nice old CAMEL covers.

Recommended to fans of NOTTURNO CONCERTANTE, FANCYFLUID and CAMEL to a certain extent, but will appeal to all fans of smooth, melodic neo-prog in general.

: : : Lise (HIBOU), CANADA : : :