Incredible prog and another great Banco album
Jeffrey J.Park | Massachusetts, USA | 04/02/2006
(5 out of 5 stars)
"This 1976 release is excellent, although it shows the band beginning to back off a TINY bit from their ambitious output from 1972-1973. Don't get me wrong though, this is full blown prog and has the overall sound and feel of the Banco compilation album from 1975. The nine tracks on Come in Un'ultima Cena range in length from 1'57" to 7'23" and feature the aspects of Banco's music that makes them my favorite Italian band: virtuosic musicianship, wonderful melodies, odd time signatures, great Hammond organ work, cool synthesizer sounds, and Francesco Di Giacomo's remarkable vocals. This album has all of these properties in abundance. Musicians on this album include the core that made their music so great including Rodolfo Maltese (acoustic/electric guitars, trombone, and French horn); Renato D'Angelo (bass); Vittorio Nocenzi (Hammond organ, synthesizers), Gianni Nocenzi (acoustic piano, synthesizers, electric piano, clarinet, and flute), PierLuigi Calderone (drums); and Francesco di Giacomo (vocals). Although all of the tracks are excellent, my favorites include the amazing pieces "Slogan", "Voila' Mida", and the closing track "Fino alla mia Porta", all three of which are completely over the top prog rockers and feature great playing. Another favorite piece is the classically influenced track "La Notte e' Piena", which just features acoustic instruments and provides a pleasant contrast with the heavier material. With respect to the remastering of the album, it was very well done, and features restored cover art including graphics and lyrics. Unfortunately for this English speaker, the lyrics are in Italian and the informative liner notes are in Japanese. It does not matter though, the music is amazing and the sound quality is excellent. Although this remastered album is expensive, it is worth every penny and is a worthwhile addition to the Banco collection along with their eponymous debut (1972), Darwin! (1972), Io sono nato Libero (1973) and Banco (1975). The follow up to Come in un'ultima cena was also released in 1976 as an instrumental soundtrack and was entitled Garafano Rosso. This album, along with the instrumental album Di Terra (1978) and Canto di Primavera (1979) (Franceso sang on this album) have only received mixed reviews here on AMAZON and elsewhere, although Di Terra is supposedly pretty good. Unfortunately, I have not heard any of them so I can not comment."
Track Listings (9) - Disc #1