Short Reviews [Massimo Pieretti - 2025 - "The Next Dream"]

Here we have keyboard player Massimo Pieretti's second solo album, and he has cut down a little bit on the number of singers this time around as he only has ten, but when one includes the musicians there are nearly 40 contributors. In some ways it does make me think of some of Clive Nolan's projects in that respect, but there are not many who bring so many together in pursuit of art. I am not going to detail everyone involved, but some names which stood out were Peter Matuchniak, Rob Townsend (Steve Hackett), John Hackett, Claudio Milano, Laura Piazzai (Clive Nolan) and Jean-Luc Payssan (Minimum Vital) to mention just a few. As with "A New Beginning", this is again a concept album, this time regarding a dreamlike world and the creatures that inhabit it and accompany us at night while, at times, almost echoing the society we live in. Massimo enjoys studying music and the album opens with his reinterpretation of a piece which is more than 400 years old, rearranged so it fits perfectly with his world view. He says the album was partially inspired by Germana Noage (in the role of Virgil?), Dante Alighieri, Miles Davis, Peter Gabriel and his Genesis, Pink Floyd and Rush, quite an eclectic mix and that is also a good way to think about this album as in many ways this feels more like a massive stage production as opposed to a release which is audio only (another manner in which it reminds me of Clive). There is a great deal going on here, and the music is quite dense in that there are a great many channels being used with layer upon layer: the score for this must have been a huge piece of work. The use of both professionally trained and popular singers provides quite a strange melange of sound, along with rock music which also contains classical elements. At times it is choral, at others fairly belting along, but what stands out throughout is the sheer professionalism and the amount of work which must have gone into this. It is too much to take in on first time of playing as musicians and singers have obviously been encouraged to find their own paths within the world and create something very special, which Massimo has somehow combined all these while ensuring it never loses sight of his initial vision, so it must be listened to a few times to get the best from it. The music and dynamic switches and changes, as we get taken on a journey, and we even get two versions of "I Dreamed of Flying" which allows us to see inside the composer's mind and what could be achieved with different arrangements while "The Next Dream" makes me think of classic Pendragon, not a bad thing at all in my book. Overall this is a fascinating piece of work.