Aerostation - Aerostation - 2018
“... exploring new boundaries ...”
intro
Aerostation is a brand new band exploring new boundaries of rock through a contamination of genres and styles. It’s an Italian power trio without guitarist. Aerostation includes two familiar names for the Prog fans. Of course we know Alex Carpani from his own Alex Carpani Band and Gigi Cavalli Cocchi from his Mangala Vallis Project. Your reviewer was one of the lucky ones to see Mangala Vallis live in concert on a Dutch stage. The trio is complemented by the additional musician Jacopo Rossi on bass. The self titled debut album Aerostation has been released on the Immaginifica label and is distributed by Self.line-up
Alex Carpani - lead & backing vocals, keyboards, all virtual guitars; Gigi Cavalli Cocchi - drums
Additional musician: Jacopo Rossi - bass
review
We can find the following 12 tracks on this fine album; “Voices“, “Wide Eyes and Wonder“, “Straight to the Sun“, “Fourteen Days Of Lightness“, “Coldness“, “Long Distances“, “The Arrow“, “The Ghost Bride“, “From Day To Night“, “One Billion Steps“ and “Kepler-186F“.After the short instrumental “Voices“ with voice samples of one of the Apollo flights and an ambient and electronic atmosphere the power trio starts with the uptempo and uplifting sounding track “Wide Eyes and Wonder“. A song with catchy vocal refrains, lovely synth melodies and an in your face rhythm section. This is a great opener. “Straight To the Sun“ is also and uptempo track with a lot of power. The band has no guitarist but Alex does use virtual guitar sounds. On one side the track is aggressive and powerful and on the other side full of melody. After all this power the band slows down a little bit with the song “Fourteen Days Of Lightness“. A diverse song with lovely vocal melodies and great keyboard parts. “Coldness“ excels through beautiful vocal melodies. Alex is doing a great job here. One of my favorite tracks is “Long Distances“. In this instrumental piece you can find some atmospheric keyboard parts besides the more uptempo keyboard melodies. In “The Arrow“ bass player Jacopo Rossi shines in the slow first part. Again we can enjoy nice keyboard work and vocal melodies. And always supported by the steady drum parts of Gigi. “The Ghost Bridge“ has an atmospheric opening with beautiful fretless bass work. The album needs this kinds of parts which are giving the album the so needed diversity. This song develops into one of my favorite tracks. The song has beautiful keyboard orchestrations. After all the uptempo and powerful stuff you can find on this album, a song like “The Ghost Bride“ is very welcome. With “From Day to Night“ you get best of both worlds. Personally I love the slow and the melodic stuff the most. “One Billion Steps“ has an intriguing ambient opening before the drums of Gigi kicks in and the song develops into one of those uptempo track. The album ends with some Apollo communication samples and ambient atmospheres in the short instrumental piece “Kepler-186F“ before powerful drumming is combined with electronic textures.
conclusion
Aerostation is an interesting project of Alex Carpani and Gigi Cavalli Cocchi. On their self titled debut album you can find great keyboard work and nice vocal melodies on top of a steady rhythm section. Most of the songs are uptempo and have catchy vocal refrains. Personally I like the songs with the greater diversity best. Just listen to songs like “Fourteen Days Of Lightness, “Long Distances or the “Ghost Bride. I am impressed by the vocal skills of Alex Carpani on this album. He is responsible for all the lead and backing vocals. The album is full of catchy vocal melodies. Your reviewer is very curious about the development of this new project. Check it out for yourself.