TRAGODIA

Waiting for the release of RICCARDO TONOLI‘s debut album, the guitar player from TRAGODIA presents new videoclip entitled “City of Emeralds”, watch the video below. The debut album is set to be released on February 7th via HeavyLoads / Freemood, labels of Tanzan Music Group.

Directed by Michele Sirigu (G Studio Entertainment), the video shows Tonoli and his guitar surrounded by Lake Garda suggestive landscape.

For the fans of John Petrucci, Yngwie Malmsteen, Jeff Loomis, Kiko Loureiro, Steve Vai.

Riccardo Tonoli’s amazing guitar skills have been a fundamental pillar of the progressive but powerful and thrashy edge often attributed to Tragodia’s trademark sound since 2007.

After completing the songwriting for his first solo effort in 2014, Riccardo entered the studio to record the instrumental full length ‘City Of Emeralds’, painstakingly produced by well-known sound engineer Daniele Mandelli (Forgotten Tomb, Dark Horizon, Tragodia, among others) at Elfo Studio (Piacenza, IT) and Tanzan Music studio (Lodi, IT).

The solo album by Tonoli will be released on February 7th via HeavyLoads/Freemood, record labels of Tanzan Music Group.

‘City of emeralds’ is an instrumental album that wants to be a journey through the atmospheres and wonders that music can create; the album is focused on the guitar work that sometimes overwhelms its spaces, but however still led to moments where orchestrations, arrangements and melodies can fully express themselves.

The approach Riccardo had during the writing process was to compose ‘Music’ for guitar and not simply ‘solos’ for guitar, along a path that goes through many situations and various emotions that can be enjoyed by the listener along the listening; there are fast songs lead by tight and heavy rhythms, others songs very melodic and more mid-tempo, sometimes melancholy, sometimes very dynamic.

Many of the songs of ‘City of Emeralds’ are inspired by the world of fairy tales, fictitious worlds where imagination and feelings can fly free separating themselves from the real world and giving rise to new adventures and situations. As Alice finds herself in an incredibly strange but at the same time wonderful world, Dorothy is hurled by a tornado in a place where she meets characters of all kinds, each with a very specific feature; this is what ‘City of emeralds’ wants to represent; with music you can reach any place and go beyond, managing to live the imaginary and making the impossible real.

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Live Report + photos By Christian Tallone (proofreading by Ali Blackdiamond)

August 18, 2014 Brescia – Italy, We arrived at the “Festa Di Radio Onda d’Urto” just in time, as TRAGODIA (from Brescia-Italy) were starting their performance, proposing metal mixed with prog, alternating with fast and rhythmic songs. The band has been active since the late ’90’s and tonight playing ‘at home’, and with a great responsibility, opening to TESTAMENT. Supported by a large group of home town followers, the guys did their best and gave us an incisively powerful show. The volume was not devastating, but everything was very well balanced. The only flaw in my opinion, was the frontman Luca Meloni’s lack of ability to bring in dialogue with the public, however he offered a good singing performance. But given the importance of the event, the lack wasn’t too bad, on the whole the band closed the set with their heads held high! Well done Tragodia!

It’s a bit strange to see a band like TESTAMENT at a party like this, costing only a 10 euro festival fee, marked mostly with a completely different genre of music (ska, reggae), with a stage set up in the middle of stalls ranging from candy to wristbands. Usually we are accustomed to the classic metal concert, with sandwich and T-shirt sellers outside and on seeing this mix I was immediately blown away, but in the end it proved to be a very well-executed party, enabled by the organisers bringing this great band to perform. It also maybe introduced the band to members of the public who may not have known this genre of music.

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But let’s get back to TESTAMENT. The atmosphere was a tense, dark and icy scene, towering over the audience, mainly made up of old nostalgic metal lovers, eagerly awaiting the Californian quintet, who then showed up in an excellent shape. In addition to Billy and Peterson, we also saw the great Gene Hoglan and Steve Di Giorgio take to the stage.

TESTAMENT attacked potently passing from old to more recent releases, they sounded as you would expect, perfect! Billy’s voice is immense and hasn’t seemed to feel the slightest passing of time, although a little high in places, sometimes it rose above the rest of the band, especially the drums were a bit stifled.

I was moshing from the beginning to the end in the front row, and then Billy called us to the wall of death in the middle of ‘Alone In The Dark’. Testament gave their Brescian audience a concert of high quality, but maybe just a little cold. The songs in the setlist performed in bursts with continuous “crescendo”, which made me think that they were there just to do their job and then leave the stage (this was the last date of the tour). Anyhow, TESTAMENT left us with such a grit and nostalgia which makes you not remove their music from your car CD player for at least 10 days.

However, a great show, which once again shows us that the old ones are always the best ones! So for the next edition, we just hope to see a band of equal value!

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