It would seem that The Poet (Shakespeare, William...you know!) may have found the inspiration for his epic Romeo And Julia in actual life. Consider this : in the year 1504, the streets of the Italian town of Imola (situated some 32 km from Bologna along the old SS6 road in the direction of coastal town Rimini) were the scene of a bloody battle between noble families, involving also a forbidden love. Actually, the tale of Romeo And Juliet was an early work of The Poet, whom had based his story on the long telling poem The Tragicall Historye of Romeus and Juliet, written by English poet Arthur Brooke, whom himself had found inspiration in a French tale by Italian writer Matteo Bandello. The original tale, however, goes back to a 1476 story by Masuccio Salernitano. Anyway, back in Imola, the bloody fight between the families resulted in the street where the battle happened being renamed “Vicolo Inferno” (the Via Inferno still exists today, and the vicolo part of the street is the even narrower part - “vicolo” meaning alley, alleyway, passage).
It's from this historical part of their hometown, that Igor Piattesi (lead singer) and Marco Campoli (guitar) took the name for their band, back when they started it up as a covers and. Having met by chance, the two swiftly looked out for fellow musicians, and immediately set forth to record a couple of covers from some of the bigger bands in the Melodic Hard Rock genre for a demo entitled Fire Coverz, in order to have a promotional tool to get gigging possibilities. By 2005, the wish to get into another direction, and do something with improvised riffs and vocal lines, led to the band recording the first 4 original tracks for the Hell's Alley demo. The following year not only saw the band progress with several shows and band competitions (occasionally followed by awards), but also by several changes in the rhythm section, which inevitably slowed down the project! The joining of bassist Marco “Daz” Dazzani finally gave the band the stabiity it needed to complete a new set of songs, which the band recorded with the aid of drummer Luca Silecchia in 2012 (he's since then replaced by current skinsman Alex “LR” La Sala). Earlier this year, the band then signed a deal with logic(il)logic for the official release of the album.
The following comes from the info sheet which was included with our promo copy : “Hourglass, ten tracks dealing with the hard separation from the past that keeps us bound to situations that don't let us live peacefully in the present, dealing with modern frenzy in everyday life. We seldom take some time on our own to enjoy the moments we experience, we don't take enough time to think about the things that really matter in life, to think if we have and we do what we really want, or if we go on simply pushed by passiveness. Simple thoughts expressed in music, an explosive mix of Hard Rock, AOR and Modern Rock that creates a catchy melodic sound, personal to the core.”! To put the record straight from the start, it has to be said that the band actually frequently flirts with Metal and, for an Italian band, the singer manages to hide his accent in a somewhat forced vocal style. It's when the singing is a little less...”aggressive”(?)...that this accent comes to the fore somewhat, but as this only happens in a couple of the 10 songs [and in the second part of the album – check the track “Stonering” (which still is heavy musically) and ballad “Earthquake”] it hardly comes over as annoying. As per usual, you can find two songs off the album at a player on the label's website (www.) logicillogic.net. No extra songs are available at (www.) facebook.com/Vicolo-Inferno, but there may be at (www.) myspace.com/vicoloinferno (I wasn't able to check that). One little item I'd like to touch on though, is the fact that all songs have both rhythm and lead/ solo guitar played in 'em...but how is the band going to reproduce that on stage...unless the singer also picks up a guitar, for instance? Hey...nice backing/ Harmony vocals, by the way!