Freedom
Crossfire

The Freedom are just one of billions of examples of excellent local bands that manage to record a few albums, garnering a somewhat niche success: it's what one might call a "euphoric niche." Undoubtedly, their success remained confined to Canton Ticino and some border areas with Switzerland in the province of Como, despite the band members being Italian. The Freedom were born from a vision of the virtuoso Marco Cases, one of the best guitarists in Lombardy, who formed this talented trio with the help of Demis Bianchi (bass) and Ivo Carrozzo (drums). I am fortunate to know Cases personally and to consider him one of my best friends: his experience in the music field is incredible, both theoretical and practical, it's something extraordinary.

In 2003, the second and last album of the Freedom, "Crossfire," was released before the band unfortunately disbanded in 2006. The great influence of this hard rock album, besides deriving from the classic scene in the style of Deep Purple, is closely related to Gotthard. It's no coincidence that keyboardist Neil Otupacca, former member of Gotthard and the Fire Trails of Pino Scotto, is a guest in two tracks.

Technically, the Freedom is impeccable, a truly explosive trio, while compositionally they are not bad at all, even though the aforementioned influences are quite evident.

Be My Woman is certainly the best track on the album, with catchy riffs and choruses, while also featuring parts of real hard rock: for a certain period, it was a hit in Canton Ticino, where the entire album, moreover, enjoyed some success. (Take Your Head) Off My Shoulder borrows the riff from ZZ Top's La Grange, just as the introduction of the grand Fat Mama closely resembles the intro of Stormbringer by Deep Purple. An excellent opener is Miss Lap Mess, with Neil Otupacca on keyboards, similar to Gypsy Train by Toto: as mentioned, the influence of the great rock and metal scene is very strong here. The rest of the album is also excellent, always oscillating between original hard rock, heavy metal, funky pieces (brilliant examples are Scratch That Itch and Strings Of Steel) and a couple of magnificent introspective moments like Love and Daylight, not to mention the overwhelming final bluesy song Climb The Mountain.

The CD sound is overall very balanced, with a strong emphasis on the guitar, perhaps a bit at the expense of the vocals. The product is a heterogeneous blend of excellent stylistic elements. Even the album cover, richly packaged in a digipak, is meticulously designed graphically, a true pleasure to hold.

The Freedom reunite and still occasionally perform, although only in the few venues supportive of their musical genre. Sadly, it remains a project with limited reach, one of those that deserve much more, but due to a fundamental ruthlessness of today's music market and a lack of interest from audiences outside their loyal fans, it has slowly ground to a halt. Yet another demonstration of how great talents in Italy (but also in the rest of the West) are not properly highlighted.