The suspicion that the Japanese Ars Nova were not exactly the heralds of good taste first came to me at the time of their previous CD "Android Domina," on whose cover the leader Keiko Kumagai, despite not being particularly blessed by Mother Nature (physically speaking, I mean...), appeared in a sexy outfit and in sapphic-sadomasochistic poses that were somewhat perplexing. Further confirmation came when I attended their performance at the Alpheus here in Rome, during which the keyboardist took the stage in a hilarious outfit that included lace corsets, knee-high leather boots, and a long curly wig down to her coccyx. Anyway, since there is no end to the worse in this "Biogenesis Project," Keiko Kumagai tries to go beyond and appears on the cover nearly naked, transformed no less into a kind of sexy space vampire (to be honest, even looking back at the band's early albums, I have consistently noticed their artwork definitely not based on minimalism and sobriety, although this time I think they've hit rock bottom...).
Leaving aside the iconographic aspects, let's say something about the musical content of this new CD which, I point out to enthusiasts, is a concept album on a science fiction theme (I started reading the story in the booklet but don't ask me to summarize it because I got deadly bored and gave up halfway... and yes, I'm a big science fiction fan!). The CD features the participation of a large lineup of guest musicians, including the "homegrown" Gianni Leone (Balletto di Bronzo), Claudio Simonetti (Goblin), Lucio Fabbri (PFM), Alex Brunori (Leviathan) as well as Arjen Lucassen (Ayreon) and several Japanese musicians, some of whom come from Gerard.
Honestly, despite the pretentiousness of it all, I must say that the album washed over me, leaving me quite indifferent. Since Kumagai is always the composer, the ingredients are more or less the same as in previous works, regardless of whether a particular part is played by one musician rather than another: and so you have the usual festival of pompous and majestic keyboards à la EL&P, with darker hints of Goblin or Balletto di Bronzo, with baroque elements and classical music rip-offs. There are some hints of novelty from a touch more metal, courtesy of Lucassen's distorted guitar, from Leone's occasional vocalizations, from Brunori's occasional singing, and from Mika (forgettable like all Japanese singers), but truly, there's not much here and certainly not much deviation from the band's previous output. In short, to summarize, this "Biogenesis Project" is an album where technique reigns supreme, trying to compensate for the shortcomings at the compositional level. It can hardly be called a bad album, but what a bore...
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