HERO (Italy)

Hero is an album that has become a prized keeper for me but I understand it will appeal to a relatively small portion of this site. For me this is a 4-star album but for many of you it will be 2-3 I would guess. If you are really into early 70s dark and weird hard rock that defies easy categorizing, Hero might blow your mind. Or perhaps
just irritate your family. (by Finnforest from PROGARCHIVES)

Guitarist Massimo Pravato, from near Venice, had played since the late 60's in various groups in the Padova area, The Bart's Group and I Delfini. Around 1970 he joined a group from Udine, Upupa, that included the English born keyboardist Robert Deller, and he played with them for a couple of years, until the two of them split and formed a trio with drummer Umberto Maschio, also from Padova.

The yet unnamed group moved to Germany, having a residency in a Munich club thanks to Deller's father, and they recorded their album in 1972 having had a contact with the Poliband music group (that was specialised in children music) that owned the Pan label.
Despite the death of Massimo Pravato in a car accident in 1973, the album was released a year later, but went largely ignored.

A nice album by a little known group, the LP was only released in Germany, but unlike the Atlantide album Francesco ti ricordi, it's very hard to find even from German dealers.

Hero is a very long album, over 46 minutes, and contains nine songs in the 4-5 minute range, with the only exceptions of the 9-minute Clapping and smiling and the 7-minute long Dew-drops, in a rural hard prog style with English lyrics, well sung by Deller. The sound is not particularly original but a very pleasant listen overall.

An Umberto Maschio playing percussion with guitarist Jacopo Gianninoto from Vicenza is Hero's drummer's son. (ITALIANPROG)

These were a little known trio of Italian/German musicians living near Munich, with an LP release from the small Austrian/German Pan label.

Hero had a hard-rock style with classical edges, and is popularly compared to early Deep Purple in collector's circles. But really it's a Teutonic inspired twist on the Italian sound, comparable (and in fact using some of the same classical references and themes) to Museo Rosenbach's ZARATHUSTRA, but condensed into smaller song based numbers. As with Metropolis (another Pan signing) Hero also used vocal stylings that hinted at Van der Graaf Generator. (COSMIC EGG)

hiped пишет:
А на обложке, как я понимаю, музыканты прикончили продюссера за хреновые продажи.