Album title: Arbeit macht frei
Artiste: Area
Nationality: Italian
Year: 1973
Subgenre: Rock Progressivo Italiano, though I would say more jazz fusion (ugh)
Player(s): Demetrio Stratos (Vocals, Organ, Steel Drum), Giampaolo Tofani (Guitars, Synth), Patrick Djivas (Bass)Guilio Capiozzo (Drums), Eddie Busnello (Sax), Patrizio Faraselli (Piano)
Familiarity: None at all
Favourite track(s): None at all
Why? I hate this album
Least favourite track(s): Everything, though the closer really annoys me
Why? Led Zepellin? No wonder they were fired when they played this at a local club instead of the requested “Whole lotta love”!!
Any preconceptions prior to listening, whether good or bad? Did not expect this much jazz and experimentalism. I mean, I have a lot of RPI albums lined up in my queue in the Progarchives Top 100, and some of them are a bit annoying but none come anywhere close to as teeth-grindingly pissing me off as this.
Factoids you'd like to share? Nah
End impression: Bloody awful
Comments: To paraphrase Marvin the Paranoid Android from “Hitch-hiker's guide to the galaxy”, the first time I heard this album was awful. And the second. The third I didn't enjoy at all. After that I went into something of a decline. I mean, bloody hell! It starts off with some woman talking in what I assume is Italian and ends with what is laughingly termed some sort of cover of or tribute to Zep, which sounds nothing like the band I know. There are only six tracks on it, which is a blessing, and none of them too long, but holy crap! I do not like jazz as you all know and this reeks of it. Ant probably loves it.
If there's one thing that sets my teeth on edge more than a fork scraping another fork it's the sound of a horn going on at top octave for minutes, and this has that in spades. I've listened to it four times now and I still couldn't pick out anything I like or could even tolerate. The annoying moans and screams, the ghostlike vocal passages, the opening diatribe. And then the title, which put me off from the beginning, being the legend wrought above the infamous concentration camp Auschwitz, the tragically ironic “work makes you free”, which always chills me. Knowing they were Italian did not put me off but this is like listening to Aphrodite's Child, which is not an experience I ever wish to repeat. Nor, indeed, is this album. Terrible, just terrible.
Rating: Sorry, can only muster a lowly
1.5 (And even that's pushing it!)
