Errata Corrige - "Mappamondo" (1974, 1977)

This cd includes early recordings plus some tracks from 1977.

"The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner" is a long instrumental song at 9:42 that starts off sounding like Mediterenian folkrock, ancient sounding. But the synthesizer takes away a little off that picture. Also, the band have really modernized their sound in this recording at certain places. It sound much too commercial and "plastic" in some parts. Which is very sad, because some themes are very beautiful in a Celeste-style, with gentle flute and piano etc. Still, this is a very delicate song for the majority of it and leaves you very interested for the next songs.

"Patagonia suite Part 1: Near The Pole" is the next and I still hear annoying synthesizer sounds being thrown at me, and whats worse, they are backed by a very boring rythm pattern. Still, there are some very mellow and nice passages here with flute and acoustic instruments. I dont give much though, for the disharmoniuos chords, or the "pumping" rhytm backing. Overall a bad track. "Patagonia suite Part 2: Under An Iron Sky" starts off with a classical theme, then heads off into sweeping slightly eastern sounding themes. This track sounds hollow and very boring. "Kubla Khan" has some vocals, which adds a necessary other dimension. Again, this band reminds me of Celeste or maybe even Maxophone in their more quiet moments. The pastoral elements and dramatic themes makes this track work pretty fine.

"Inside The Great Mastaba" also sounds very eastern sounding, not so surprising from its title. But the instrumental textures here really dont impress me at all. This track sounds like background music, new age music or something like that. Hard to be awake when listening to this kind of "adventorous" music.

"American Dream" - and now it gets really bad. This track is some kind of jazzy instrumental song, sounding very typical late 70's disco styled. Pretty awful. "Zombie" is slightly better than previous track but still far from italian prog. Instead this is just very commercial sounding recording from a band that belongs moe in a traditional pop vein. Very jazzy spiced, vocals, to be avoided. "Dance Of The New Land" is a catchy and fast track, but this kind of music of course dont belong in this kind of forum. "Ageless Traveler" and the trend continues with this shamefully modern sounding tracks. All the last four tracks are essentially just throw away songs. Some of them might have some average standard of even likeable themes somewhere but basically its just modern music that noone wants to give a second listen.

So to sum it up, this is a cd that doesnt have many good sides, or tracks. The first track is one of the better but this is overshadowed by a flat production and very non-saying tracks that doesnt do the band justice at all. And the other half of the cd, with the tracks from 1977 is just garbage. Not recommended.