Cervello: Melos (1973)
Cervello was like too many Italian prog rock bands out there: they release one album and vanished. When it comes to one-shot Italian prog bands, I honestly can rank it up there with Museo Rosenbach’s Zarathustra. It’s that great.
Cervello was lead by guitarist Corrado Rustici, who was around 16 years old at that time! And since he was the brother of Osanna guitarist Danilo Rustici, it should come as no surprise that Cervello’s music should bear a resemblance to Osanna. But there are differences to Cervello’s music as well. The sax isn’t so aggressive, and the flute is not in that Jethro Tull style that Osanna did. But it still didn’t prevent Melos from being heavy and it has plenty of that same great atmosphere. Imagine what Osanna’s Palepoli would sound like if there were no Mellotron, and it was divided in to seven cuts, rather than two side length cuts.
Osanna isn’t the only thing I can compare Cervello with, but with also Semiramis (since their vocalist, Gianluigi di Franco sounds like Semiramis’ Michele Zarrillo) and of Biglietto per L’Inferno. Melos opens up with “Canto del Capro” which starts off with some strange droning sounds and lots of really trippy flutes. Then you hear this sinister chanting that goes, “Magica danza ci porterà il seme. Vivido intruglio disseta la mente. Magica danza ci porterà il seme.” Then the main music starts and right from the get go, you’re going to be treated with some incredible Italian prog with great guitar, flute, and sax work.
Corrado Rustici’s style is very much in the style of Mahavishnu’s John McLaughlin (Corrado got inspired when he bought Mahavishnu’s The Inner Mounting Flame, so little surprise that McLaughlin is one of Corrado’s heroes). In fact, if McLaughlin was in an Italian prog band, rather than an American fusion band, this might be the result.
The next five cuts, “Trittico”, “Euterpe”, “Scinsione”, the title track, and “Galassia” are all in the same vein and are nothing short of incredible. This is the kind of music that gives me all the reminders why I got in to prog rock in the first place. The music is complex with plenty of changes in each of the cuts with aggressive passages and some mellow atmospheric passages with flute and vibes. The final cut, “Affresco” is basically a short vocal piece, and is much more calm than the rest of the album, but still, a good piece.
The original LP was released on Dischi Ricordi. It came in a gatefold gimmick cover. The cover features a strange picture of someone opening a can of tomatoes. The can itself features a picture of an atomic bomb exploding. The can on the cover features a flap which opens up to reveal the picture of the band whose faces are smeared in plastic wrap (and you can tell, from looking at the faces of the guys, that most of them couldn’t be more than 16), as well as a strange, Salvador Dali-like artwork featuring a person in a wheelchair with a strange sphere for his head and a surrealistic landscape that look like it came off the 1973 sci-fi animated movie Fantastic Planet.
Cervello’s Melos has been reissued a couple times. First as a Japanese reissue on LP. A CD reissue also surfaced in a standard jewel case. Then Si-Wan in Korea reissued it on CD and that’s the reissue I recommend the most. This version uses the same gimmick gatefold packaging as the original LP, except miniaturized to CD size.
Anyway, I was simply amazed by this album, and given how most of the band members weren’t even 18 at the time, it’s amazing how they pulled such an incredible album, when musicians at that time who were ten years older than themselves often had trouble pulling off such an album. Melos might be hard to find on any format, but it’s totally essential, especially if you like Italian prog.