Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

For most fans of the genre the phrase ‘Doomy feel’ doesn’t quite with the narrative; it belongs more with a particular phase of Blues than it does with Jazz, and yet striding out wielding the sword of music as the protagonist in this earthy narrative comes the intimate and darkly held Argento from A.M.E.N.; a set of Avant-Garde studies in human existence that sends a delicious shiver down the spine as the listener is shown the line gossamer thread that separates the two genres as twins in a spectral march.

That line is the unknown art, the imagination of the players finding a groove laden with the tragic feel of time overlayed on the beauty of calamity and embracing a pleasure of ruinous renaissance; and as Erba del Diavolo, Vittorio Sabelli, Luigi Genovesi, Svedonio, Graziano Brufani, and Oreste Sbarra play with the shadows of music, the time signatures and demonstrative powers of illumination, so the Progressive Gothic reveals itself as the leading force in this eclectic and stunning Jazz performance.

The tracks that make up Argento, Brindisi, Magia, Mistero, Omicidio, and Cadaveri are covered in magic, an enchantress’s dream of mysticism and fierce charm, and with additional support from Marcello Malatesta, Claudia Murachelli, Valerio Bellocchio, and Carlo Maria Genovesi, the interpretation of music becomes a spell in which the listener will become enthralled and overcome by the reasoning of disconnection and fluid statements of intent.

Measured perhaps as an extreme, Argento is to be seen, praised, for its sweeping movements captured with a style that imprints itself on the heart and the dark soul of the listener. The drive is important, the reasoning dramatic, and each performer coming together as would an orchestra at the feet of the edge of the impact of the opera and the feat in humanity that takes place upon its broad wooden stage, so to does the merging of Jazz and Blues create the influence of collision, of the unrepentant and the waves of clarification and devilment within.

Scope and sheer audacity combine in a feature that grips you by the heart, a masterpiece of objective displays of musicianship. A.M.E.N.’s tour de force in action.

A.M.E.N. release Argento on January 17th.

Ian D. Hall