John 'Bo Bo' Bollenberg REVIEW

WICKED MINDS Witchflower Black Widow Records BWRCD 093-2 Imagine a hardrock monster deeply rooted in the magical seventies merging Deep Purple with Uriah Heep (Deep Heep or Purple Uriah), using authentic vintage instruments to keep the spirit as lively as possible yet recorded with the technical facilities of the 21st century. That’s how one could describe the Italian five-piece Wicked Minds in a nutshell. The album opens with the kick-ass in your mouth prog’n’roll of ‘Through my love’ which immediately highlights the glorious Hammond organ in a style which we have learned to love by the likes of Jon Lord and Ken Hensley. Add to this the voice of JC Cinel which sounds exactly like that of the late David Byron and you all know you’re in for a real treat. I like it when the machine is switched off right at the end of the titletrack. As with their main examples, Wicked Minds not only harks back to the powerful rocking themes but also has a very melodic and romantic side. In that respect the lush melodies in ‘A child and a mirror’ perfectly illustrate this before a rougher edge incorporates the whole. We should also note some delicate guitarparts here. With glorious Moog sounds which were the absolute trademark in the seventies ‘Before the morning light’ kicks off in kind of a theatrical way before settling for a bluesy rock feel. Again some ace Hammond playing intertwined with typical Wakeman era Moog settle in the middle section of the song. I like it ! I like it a lot ! I guarantee you will most definitely melt once flute introduces the acoustic ‘Burning tree’ which is when candles come in very handy together with some wonderful red wine and a box of Belgian chocolates (after all I’m Belgian so why shouldn’t I promote the local product ?). The medieval feel of the song delivers the necessary breath of fresh air you need at this point on the recording. With the majority of the songs written by keyboardplayer Paolo Negri needless to say the emphasis lies a lot on the Hammond. The rhythm for ‘Black Capricorn fire’ reminds me of Dave Brubeck’s ‘Take five’ whilst flute and Fender Rhodes introduce some jazzy elements and the guitar interacts with a bluesy feel. With the all acoustic guitar intermezzo ‘The court of the satyr’, the band illustrates the great diversity in composition and the skills which each of the musicians clearly has. ‘Sad woman’ starts in a spacerock kind of way with synthsounds floating around on a bed of heavy guitar and Hammond sounds. The epic on this “Witchflower” album comes in the form of ‘Scorpio odyssey’ which contains lush flute playing on top of a slightly psychedelic backing. Towards the end the song swells and swells even adding a saxophone which turns the music towards Pink Floyd. The album closes with the Deep Purple cover ‘Soldier of fortune’ which sees some of the instrumentation changed when compared to the original. It’s still a decent version though. The DVD is made up out of separate recordings. First of all there are some songs recorded live at the Tendenze Festival in Piacenza, Italy on 3rd September 2004. Then we have a couple of tracks recorded live at the famous Spirit of 66 Club in Verviers, Belgium dating from 20th February 2005. In both cases only one handheld camera was used which of course doesn’t result in pristine quality. What I miss are close ups of the keyboardsolo’s yet as a bonus DVD I guess there’s very little I can complain about. Next to videoclips for ‘Through my love’ and ‘From the purple skies’ the DVD section ends with six songs which were recorded as audio only during the band’s promo recording session on 2nd September 2005. To end it all the original 1993 studio version of ‘Through my love’ is included making a total of four versions of this song alone in this package. Let’s say the DVD is indeed but a bonus whilst the main plate on the Wicked Minds menu is the brandnew “Witchflower” album which is by all means yet another victory and a rightful successor to the previous “From the purple skies” album. I’m a fan ! John 'Bo Bo' Bollenberg