Il Balletto di Bronzo
Ys

Anyone well-acquainted with Italian prog from the '70s knows we are facing one of the most controversial albums of the genre. Among progressive fans, there are those who worship and elevate it to masterpiece status (many) and those who judge it with disdain as prog mush (a few), relegating it among the less successful albums of this golden age for Italian rock!

Whichever the truth, one thing is certain: this work does not leave anyone indifferent, provoking the contrasting reactions mentioned above. We are in Naples in 1972, the band Il Balletto di Bronzo, after the excellent debut "sirio 2222," enriches its lineup with the entry of the keyboardist from the dissolved "Città Frontale" Gianni Leone. With an overflowing personality, considering his very young age of barely more than seventeen at the time of the events, he transforms the band's sound from honest hard rock with strong beat undertones to a cerebral progressive with strong dark hues, with that cheerful recklessness and presumption typical of youth but also with a technical mastery and a pursuit of experimentation worthy of the best Fripp, placing the work among the most extreme and alternative of the time! It would be pointless to review the album piece by piece since it presents itself as a single, very homogeneous suite, where it is difficult to distinguish the end of one song and the beginning of another, although, truthfully, the CD version contains the track "nella casa comoda" where the song form is much more pronounced, without giving up very avant-garde sounds for the era in question.

"ys" is a concept that talks about the last man on earth and his encounter with Christ, and in this, it fits into the vein of spiritual rock of which Italian prog was full if we think of names like "Il Rovescio della Medaglia," "Alphataurus," or "Latte e Miele," just to name a few; the whole story takes place in the legendary city of Ys, from which the work's name originates; musically, as mentioned above, it's an extreme work—anyone who has heard Il Balletto's debut cannot help but feel displaced! Everything seems to escape any melodic ostentation, and with any melodic line hint, everything is mixed again into an avant-garde electronic jazz prog; very significant is that all this comes from Naples, the most famous Italian city in the world for melodic music, which testifies once again to preserving in its darkest corners a modern and unconventional soul, on par with other great European cities. Leone's voice is somewhat considered the weak point of "ys," at times excessively shrill and irritating, but in my opinion, it fits well into the album's sound oddity, and the vocal work is enhanced by the choruses featuring the splendid voice of Giuni Russo, who in the following years (perhaps driven by hunger pangs) moved to the provincial Italian summer songs that made her famous in the '80s in Alghero in the company of the foreigner; a fate not accepted by Gianni Leone, who, disappointed by the poor sales and popularity of "ys," decided to emigrate to the States, falling into oblivion from which he was only pulled out in recent years thanks to Mexican, Japanese, and Korean fans, where his album is considered on par with a "Dark Side of the Moon" by Floyd or "In the Court of the Crimson King" by King Crimson, which brought his work back into the music circuit, supporting the thesis that those who believe something must be up there in the sky after all!

On this note, allow me a concluding analysis: how many real musicians or even musical geniuses has Italy given up due to a closed and conservative mindset that, especially in music, has always shown its shabbiest and cruelest side? Couldn't it be that the much-vaunted Hammill, Fripp, or Gabriel were right here at home? The final judgment is for posterity to decide.