Antonius Rex
Anno Demoni

"I think our music is capable of creating a hidden image, a suggestion that "is" before it becomes visible like a spectrum of light. Our music was an esoteric symbol in which we expressed the lost advantage attributed to the cultural role of money, a fascinating small margin of its spiritual escape. Listing our eight works, in whose sonic impressions we described the indescribable, we attempted to give the mortals of the earth another chance to foresee their instances. Someone said of us that we were "non-technical producers of blurry mirrored images steeped in mystery"

Antonio Bartoccetti has always appeared as a mysterious and poignant figure. Considered the most arcane and gloomy character we have had in Italy, especially for certain dark/gothic themes that were so fashionable in the seventies. His sometimes "blasphemous" esoteric and occultist concepts certainly contributed to influencing his way of composing, to embrace a much more refined and profound sound. His music has the task of perceiving the essence of the sounds of the night in the murky silence in which they are immersed. A combination between the dark shadows of the night and the most ambiguous fantasies of man, it's like being absorbed in an unsettling dreamlike dimension, capable of immersing us in those dreamlike places longed for by Stoker. Ancient gothic castles, bleak and tormented landscapes paint the art hidden in "Anno Demoni" (1979). The sinister duo Bartoccetti/Nortis manages to astonish again, consecrating Antonius Rex as proponents of a certain type of Dark/Progressive even in Italy (since it was already well-known in Britain thanks to the advent of bands like Black Widow and Zior).

"Anno Demoni" is therefore an enigmatic creature capable of grazing the oblivion hidden in the darkness of the shadows, composed and recorded over the course of about ten years, it was "banned" by RCA in '79 due to its unorthodox content. Thus in 1992, a limited edition reissue in LP and another in CD with the band name incorrectly labeled (Jacula instead of Antonius Rex) became absurdly valuable for collectors. Recently, the Genoese label "Black Widow Records," on the verge of reissuing the lost gems of the "historical" undergrowth of the Italian scene (now considered only by the latter), decided to reintroduce all Antonius Rex albums to the market (among which other Bartoccetti projects like "Jacula", "Dietro Noi Deserto", and "Invisible Force").

This reissue is worth mentioning as it includes some additional tracks on the disc such as the suite "Gloriae manus", an arcane march recited in Latin by Antonio Bartoccetti himself, enveloped by the candid beauty of an ancestral organ decorated with brief moments of deceptive terror. In "Jacula The Witch", the sweet sound of Nortis's female voice glides sinuously over the piano arpeggios, rendering the atmosphere of great class with its timid simplicity. The harmony and sensations that can be felt in the air have an almost perverse taste, the hermeticism lying in the depths of that organ in the album's title track is frightening. Melancholic whispers, the din of percussion, the clang of heavy arpeggios narrated by those voluptuous violins, animate that landscape worn by darkness. Sometimes providing in a synthetic and imaginative manner the interpretation of the deepest sense of the work. Especially thanks to its creative and musical quality, largely forged by elaborate and complex compositions, even though overwhelmed by an interesting union between guitars and bass written in soloist style ("Soul Satan" "Missanigra").

We are faced with one of the most arcane works ever composed in Italy, of undeniable artistic value, representing, along with a few others, the peak and unreachable sum of the "The Dark side of Progressive."

"Where will you go with your projects maybe up in the sky to command even God, you walk... you walk... towards distant worlds, money is the only thing you love.... these leaps into the dark color the world only black...."