Goblin
Suspiria

Some define it as the best disco album by Goblin, others as the best film by Argento…

It was 1977 and Dario Argento's virtuosity blossomed into works that left a mark, like Deep Red ('75), Suspiria (precisely '77), Inferno ('80), and the world was swept by a new way of evoking fear: almost nonexistent plot, epilepsy-inducing lighting, and soundtracks that set the rules, that killed and resurrected or were killed; they were Dario Argento and Goblin: never was a collaboration more fitting than this, never had a film been so frightening, and most importantly, never had a soundtrack like this been heard (and of course, that of Deep Red).

La la la la la la la, la la la… a music box gradually enters our ears, transporting us to a haunted forest outside a very important dance school whose name I do not remember: a girl runs among the branches in terror… It's Suspiria, a piece that never lets up, to survive it you just have to run, run without ever stopping: here Goblin give us a kind of "anthem" as they did with the main theme of Deep Red two years earlier, dense and anguishing, terribly raw, with that smell of raw flesh, which I would never want to hear.

Witch, could remind a little of Yes's "Tales From Topographic Oceans", due to the exhausting use of percussion, but here the intent is anything but calming: the feeling of anguish inevitably increases… and it transports us to Opening to the Sighs and Sighs, the first a very brief atmospheric introduction, the second an actual Sabbath, with string instruments of every type: the theme almost takes on an oriental flavor and midway through someone from Goblin lets loose with superhuman sounds, noises that could remind of endless burps; someone tries to whisper something under their breath, the adepts circle around clumsily, but at some point everything vanishes.

Here comes Markos, an apparently more reassuring theme, in reality, a tangle of sounds, synths, percussion, little pots, bells, various gadgets, and countless counterpoints: the composition, devoid of focus, slips away in 4:07 minutes preparing the ground for the haunted forest… Black Forest, almost seems like a piece discarded from Roller '76, with the skillful use of guitar arpeggios and the usual atmospheric keyboard prowess; not to be underestimated is the drum work by Agostino Marangolo and the bass by Fabio Pignatelli, which although not as prominent as Morante's guitar or the keyboards of Claudio Simonetti and Maurizio Guarini, they do their dirty work.

The reprise of the main theme in a more blurred and dazed style sets the stage for Blind Concert, which after this murky introduction continues on almost funky paths but always with the usual malignant vein, and roguishness that well ties in with the theme of the film to which these tracks provide the soundtrack. The finale, vaguely dazed of the album, belongs to Death Valzer, a canonical waltz for solo piano, which closes too reassuringly, to be really reassuring: just watch the movie to realize it.

The CD version presents three bonus tracks, truthfully absolutely unnecessary, as they are versions recorded a few years later that have little to do with the tracks present on the album, so I recommend getting the LP or the first CD version of only 34 minutes, much more appetizing and gruesome.

With the release of 'Suspiria', Argento became a symbol of global horror, receiving more acclaim abroad (naturally in Japan) than in Italy (the usual boors). The all-encompassing horror inspiration gave us yet another great masterpiece, 'Inferno', but there Argento left Goblin in the drawer to entrust the soundtrack to another great, KEITH EMERSON, but that's another great story…

Arivedes