When A Piedi Nudi first came to attention, they were hailed as the second coming of Il Balletto di Bronzo, a pretty tough act to follow for a maiden voyage. The band is an Italian quintet in what seems to be the fashionable prog styling these days - heavy metal-styled guitar, very digital keys, and modern, gated sounding drums, a glaring contrast to the analog keys and synth feel of an album like Ys. However, the vocals compare favorably to Balleto di Bronzo (which really is amazing especially when you compare them to most of their contemporaries), and the wailing three part-harmonies ocasionally do remind one of their alleged influence, although the digital stylings prevents any further comparison from coming too close. The music can be pretty complex at times, although after several tracks the sameness of the instrumental timbres and other certain repetitive features set in. A lot of these flaws seemed to be avoided in later albums, fortunately, as the band's compositional prowess improved. The debut remains a decent album, but only a shadow of their more impressive future.
(originally reviewed as part of The New Italian Progressive Rock Scene
(part 1), Exposé #3, p. 6, Edited for Gnosis 3/17/01)
A Piedi Nudi are an Italian band from the 90's playing heavy symphonic progressive with a prog-metal edge provided by the guitarist. Although more than once the guitarist shows that he can do more than gung-ho metal riffing, parts of this album are spoiled by his unsubtle and rather unoriginal metal guitar intrusions. Still, at times, A Piedi Nudi play fairly interesting heavy symphonic prog, but less creative and more simplistic than, for example, Deus Ex Machina or DFA. Creazione is somewhat of a mixed bag, which could have benefited especially from a more refined style of guitar playing.
