La Scimmia Sulla Schiena Del Re is a late era Italian progressive rock album created by a band compiled by a former member of Dalton. Other than perhaps the instrumentation (e.g. ARP String Synthesizer) and production qualities, Mo.Do. seems like a classic album from 1974 Italy. A perfectly blended mix of complex progressive rock and singer songwriter music, complete with flute. Overall similar to maybe Formula 3 or Citta Frontale. The period from 1978 to 1986 was a boneyard for Italian progressive symphonic rock, and Mo.Do. may, in fact, be the sole representative from 1980 of this much loved style. I do realize there's plenty of other Italian albums from this period like Picchio dal Pozzo's second, Confusional Quartet, Pepe Maina's sophomore release, etc... but none of these are what I'd call symphonic rock.
---3/38/26
Such a difficult album to evaluate. Were it released in the Italian prog heyday, I would think it would fall to the bottom tier considering the stiff competition. Much of this has to do with the instrumentation and production. It's lacking those sharp edges and breaks the genre is known for. Technically those breaks are here, just not as jarring. The soft rock pieces are not romantic in the PFM tradition, but rather a more mundane style of pop rock. The tough part, a least for someone who loves history as I do, is the album is such an anomaly in the Italian progressive rock landscape. Almost all European countries were still enjoying a continuation of the 70s going into the 80s. Shoot, even here in the States that was the case. At least at the grassroots level. But not Italy. The 70s stopped after 1977, and did not return until the late 80s. I said similar in my writeup for Hopo, whose Senti was even further off the grid, with only threadbare ties to the original 70s masters. I'm compelled to offer a +1 just for the effort and sheer will to get this out to an audience who didn't care. I think I will.
Ownership: 1993 Mellow (CD). Acquired in 1994.
Ownership: 1993 Mellow (CD). Acquired in 1994.
1994; 11/23/12 (review); 3/8/26 (update)
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