This band had a rule, and on their fourth album they broke it. La Maschera di Cera were built to recover the seventies palette frequently with no electric guitar at all — LuxAde had only acoustics. Here Matteo Nahum arrives and plugs in, and the difference is the first thing anybody notices: the sound is toughened, and his playing runs from delicate picking to powerful chords and searing solos. A group defined partly by an absence went and filled it, and it turned out to be the record where everything finally gelled.

The short version

Petali di Fuoco is the fourth studio album, produced by Franz Di Cioccio of PFM and released on Aereostella. Nine tracks, laid out across an A side and a B side. Alessandro Corvaglia sings; Fabio Zuffanti plays bass; Agostino Macor plays keyboards; Andrea Monetti plays flute; Maurizio Di Tollo plays drums, having replaced Marco Cavani on the previous album; and Matteo Nahum is the new man on guitar, added to the traditional line-up rather than replacing anyone. The band describe it as continuing their search for the true sound of the seventies — the dreaming, imaginative one.

The balance

The interesting critical claim about this record is that it is where the band solved a problem they had been working on for years. The rare balance between elaborate writing and fine melody was something that took them time to achieve, and LuxAde was part of the experiment in that direction rather than the arrival. Here they got it. One reviewer who prefers melodic prog and admits to being in the minority calls this their peak, beautiful and brilliant; another who loved LuxAde says they have not merely equalled it but bettered it. The authentic retro sound is still in place, but the band are visibly not standing still.

The sound

Tighter than before, and carrying the strongest melodies the band had put together to that point, with a dynamic range that makes constant use of light and shade. The seventies apparatus is all still here — Hammond, piano, flute, the vintage keyboard bed — but the electric guitar changes the weight of it, and where earlier records leaned on atmosphere this one leans on writing. The trade-off is real: there is no epic on the scale of LuxAde’s Enciclica 1168. Tracks sit around the six or seven minute mark instead, which still leaves plenty of room for fine instrumental work but is a different proposition.

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The songs

Fino all’aurora opens powerfully and makes an exciting start — lilting organ runs, forceful electric guitar and rhythm section, before it settles into a piano-dominated verse. Tra due petali di fuoco closes the first side and is singled out for its sheer beauty; it is the one to hear if you only hear one. Il declino comes in on powerful Hammond at a faster tempo until a change halfway slows everything down, and then segues into Phoenix for some wonderfully melancholic piano and flute. D-sigma, 4.18, Discesa, L’inganno and Agli uomini che sanno gia volare fill out the rest.

Reception and legacy

Unanimous notices, and by this point the band had the live record to back them: Belgium, France, Switzerland, Portugal, Spain and the United States, including NEARfest in 2007 and Progday in North Carolina. Italians call it one of the finest examples of contemporary Italian progressive rock, and the label’s own description — a style that is passion and involvement in the pure state — is closer to accurate than label copy usually gets. The reservation belongs to listeners who came for the long-form pieces: this is the record where La Maschera di Cera chose songs over suites, and if the suites were the point for you, LuxAde is the one to go back to.

The verdict

Worth it, and arguably the best place to hear what this band could actually do rather than what they were paying tribute to. Fino all’aurora first. Then Tra due petali di fuoco. Then Il declino into Phoenix, which is the best sequence here. Then the 2002 debut, to hear how far the idea travelled in seven years. The tribute band had by now stopped being a tribute band: this is a group with its own melodies, its own guitarist and a producer from PFM, making seventies music that no longer needs the seventies to justify it.

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