Clepsydra - The Other Sunsets 

(CD 2009, 62.49, MP & Records MPRCD 056)

The tracks:
  1- Open Your Eyes(2:28)
  2- Clouds(2:58)
  3- Majestic 12 \ Eyes Only(4:00)
  4- Sometimes In July(5:17)
  5- Exotica(10:01)
  6- Albuquerque(6:04)
  7- Tabasco At Sunrise(3:16)
  8- Along The Cam Nothing More(3:09)
  9- Acid Moon(6:03)
10- Dreamcatcher(2:10)
11- Last Night On Vega(8:05)
12- Lost In The Universe(9:13)

Clepsydra Website        samples       


The Italian Clepsydra-project - not to be mixed up with the eponymous Swiss band - started in May 2002 from the collaboration of two old friends: singer-guitarist Fabio Di Gialluca and drummer-singer Danillo Ricco. After working with different bass players, they met Alessandro Petraccia and together they formed the current line-up. After they recorded some demos, their debut album Second Era Of Stonehenge was released in February 2007.
The Other Sunsets is their second full-length album that has with Open Your Eyes a perfect instrumental intro: two minutes of bluesy guitar sounds in the vein of the Pink Floyd-epic Shine On You Crazy Diamond. This intro is fluently followed by the ballad Clouds which is sung very well, while Majestic 12/Eyes is a more heavy guitar-orientated song, more similar to rock bands of the sixties like Cream. This piece contains some expanded guitar eruptions as well. The blues rock ballad Sometimes In July in Jimi Hendrix-style has perfectly alternating worn vocals and guitar cords. It’s just too bad this song suddenly ends. Exotica is the longest track lasting over ten minutes and again we hear an attractive and varied way of electric guitar playing the way Jimi Hendrix did about forty years ago. In the middle-section of this epic we hear magical dreamy sounds: The Doors are never far away: it namely sounds like The End without vocals, but with birds whistling at the end. Albuquerque is another hallucinating blues song with some heavy moments. Tabasco At Sunrise is a modern blues rock song in the vein of Joe Bonamassa. The happy pop tune Along The Cam Nothing More is totally different stuff and the six-minute song Acid Moon is rather difficult to describe. Again, it’s beautifully played with several guitar solos that resemble Jimi Hendrix and Rory Gallagher.

One of the best songs of the album is the Last Night On Vega. It sounds like rock legend Jim Morrison spitting out his lyrics accompanied by a howling electric guitar. The final song Lost In The Universe is the climax of this beautiful album. Play this one loud, very loud, because Jimi Hendrix meets Rory Gallagher here! The trumpet solo is rather surprising, but it fits perfectly in the colouring of Clepsydra’s music. In the shortest song Dreamcatcher we hear Indian chants.

Without doubt, Fabio Di Gialluca knows his classics. A small drawback is the fact that he doesn’t have an accent-free English pronunciation, but who cares? Italian Clepsydra was a big surprise for me, but their music has nothing to do with progressive rock whatsoever. It’s more than an hour of high standard blues and blues rock, no more, no less, but nevertheless I loved it...

 ****  Cor Smeets (edited by Peter Willemsen)

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