Premiata Forneria Marconi
Chocolate Kings

Bernardo Lanzetti recounts that, during a London tour, he found himself in a bar opposite his favorite singer, his primary source of inspiration. He was so overwhelmed by the unexpected appearance that, while approaching him to talk, betrayed by emotion, he spilled his glass on him, thus ruining the idyll.

So: who was the singer in question? The singer soaked?

Regarding "Chocolate Kings," many incorrect things have been said and written, including that Lanzetti's source of inspiration was Peter Gabriel. The singer doused with champagne was Roger Chapman of Family; a serious listen to "Chocolate Kings" reveals this instantly. But, as with many other things, critics never understand a damn thing.

Just as they never understood this album, released in 1975 by Numero1 and triumphant in the United States and especially in Great Britain (as far as I remember and I believe I remember well, it reached twelfth place in the UK charts). In my opinion, it is the best result of the Milanese group, the most ambitious and mature work, decidedly superior to all their previous production and unfortunately also the last great record before the decline, sometimes honorable, other times repugnant.

The sound of the mid-seventies is, in my opinion, the best sound of Premiata: the approach to jazz-rock of the Mahavishnu Orchestra, of Mark-Almond, combined with the compositional vigor in Family and Gentle Giant style, create a crystalline and very warm timbral fusion. In particular, Flavio Premoli's keyboards, which infuse the compositions with robust doses of Rhodes and Hammond, determine the sonic temperature of the disk. For those unfamiliar with the vinyl edition of the time, inside the famous cover, which presents a fat and disheveled Marilyn inhaling deep puffs of cigarette (in the U.S. it was released with a drawing of a chocolate bar wrapped in foil colored with the American flag), there was a poster with the same enlarged image and the lyrics, written by PFM with the collaboration of Marva Marrow, wife of Peter Sinfield, already with Premiata for the lyrics of the bizarre "Is my face on straight," present in the album "L'isola di niente" and best moment of an overrated record.

"Chocolate Kings"; the kings of chocolate. That is, the American liberation troops who, emancipating Italy from fascism, gifted the country with their dominion. Thus in the text of the title track, perhaps the only track with reminiscences of Premiata's early days, with its completed rhythmic, in tarantella.

The record features tremendous moments like the opening track, "From under", a "cinematic" and kaleidoscopic piece, full of images regarding the fauna of freaks and dealers, rich and marginalized, with which the states are still filled. The King Crimson-like ending concludes this true mini-suite. "Harlequin" is a languid waltz about loose dogs in the square, the alternative and junkie face of a ruthless country. "Out on the roundabout" is the pinnacle of the album, a fairy track opened by Mussida's acoustic guitar subject to chorus injections and Premoli's Rhodes, in the Kerry Minnear style. A very complex structure with sudden changes of tone and an excellent Hammond solo. Stories of seasonal, climatic, and existential changes, built with parallels and analogies of vivid and surreal images. The painful closure of "Paper Charms", tales of heroin, of escapes, and of victims, closes with a reflective and increasingly solemn note this remarkable album.

I agree with the previous reviewer of this album, antoniomimmo. "Chocolate Kings" is PFM's masterpiece, the most ambitious and well-constructed album, a report of the American experience of an overrated and sometimes unpleasant band but which in this work reaches unimaginable heights for Italian progressive and beyond.

After "Chocolate kings," Mauro Pagani left the band due to musical incompatibility, and it was the decline.

http://it.youtube.com/watch?v=esHEPt41Sjc: 1974... video for the RAI that demonstrates the quality level reached by our Milanese. A singer was indeed missing...