Minus One is a 3 song EP from Italian prog rockers Opera.¹ A wonderfully dark and edgy album, filled with synth & excellent guitar, that draws your soul out allows it to fly.
Missing Diana is the first song & as the title suggests it is filled with loss & longing. The guitar is plaintive & as the notes filled my head I closed my eyes. This song demands attention…no checking your social media…just listen as the singer’s sadness pours out.
Diana, I feel your voice in my brain / Diana, searching for under the rain…/Standing in a golden cage /And waiting for another chance I grieve but I can’t live /Lost in this oblivion that kill me I have nothing left but you/And I miss you [sic]²
After the grief is over, Out of Time begins & this song is epic. The Floydian influence is apparent; it’s like a cousin to Dark Side of the Moon. Again there’s synth that whines & cries in the background while the guitar provides the dirty underbelly to the warning of the lyrics. After listening to this song I feel like I should update my bucket list.
The final song on Minus One is Moving Inside. Again the influence of Pink Floyd is felt along with some Genesis. The lyrics in this song are interesting & I’ll let you try to decipher what they are saying. Here the vocals are a bit rougher than the other two songs & it fits nicely.
I thoroughly enjoyed this taste of Opera & want to hear more. There is definitely an epic album in their reach & I will be interested to hear how that is accomplished. I do find the lyrics to be a bit rough since the translation to English is a bit choppy. It didn’t dampen my enjoyment of the music but it did make understanding the whole album a bit tougher.
Opera’s current line up is Marco Monciatta, Gabriele Garoia, Steve Monciatta, and Andrea Coppola. You can find them on Facebook.
¹ It was difficult to find much information on this band for a couple reasons. One being that Opera is a fairly generic term so searching the internet was not an easy task. Secondly, most of what I found was in Italian & since I’m not fluent in Italian that was a huge barrier.
² The lyrics are printed exactly as they came from Opera’s website. The translation is a bit rough but the basic meaning is felt through the combination of lyrics & music. Even I will let grammar & spelling go in such instances.
