Leonardo - The Absolute Man

It must be in the air… after Nikolo Kotzev's Nostradamus it's the turn of the Leonardo… da Vinci of course! But who was the ultimate man? He was a painter, an architect, a sculptor, an engineer and an Italian theoretician during the period 1452 to 1519. How is it that one man could have possessed so many gifts? This concept album doesn't claim to give you an answer, simply to share a part of an extraordinary man's life. Two steps forward from his time, he made a lot of important discovers that changed our world. Today we continue to work with his reflections, projects and inventions. I can say clearly, it's not a rock opera. Certainly there's a lot of strong moments, but Trent Gardner (composer of music and lyrics) prefered to treat this subject as the life of Leonardo da Vinci. Da Vinci's life led him during the writing and made this into a concept album that goes to a musical progression, calm tracks alternated with some strongest ones. A lot of background keyboards give atmosphere to the musical passages when the guitars standing back. Sometimes the music went to Jazz Rock to suddenly came back to the red line of the story. This album isn't boring, when you relax your mind the music takes another musical direction. Soft and beautiful perfectly sum up this album. Trent Gardner has chosen a great band for this project: James Labrie (Dream Theater) is Leonardo da Vinci, Davey Pattison (Gamma) is Serfiero da Vinci, Mike Baker (Shadow Gallery) is Melzi and Steve Walsh (Kansas, Streets, Seventh Key) is Calco. All their influences can be found, from the acoustic sections with piano of Shadow Gallery to Dream Theater's heavy sounds goin' through the wonderful vocals of Kansas. He didn't neglect the cover too, I have never seen such fine artwork. The first time I saw it, I was immediately attracted by this CD. Three listening later, I have completely assimilated this album. In my opinion everything is perfect but I have just one little regret, I didn't find the magic touch that could have made it a great album….