Once New Trolls ended up all the legal proceedings that led them to split
into many different musical strands and other projects (Ibis, N.T. Atomic
System, Tritons – real and fake ones -, Johnny from Tritons, and so on…),
they reunited with “Concerto grosso n. 2”, published several reprints, live
albums and compilations, and even entered the dance trend of the time with
“Aldebaran” (1978), naturally followed by the Bee Gees-like “New Trolls”
(1979), a.k.a. “La Barchetta” from its cover image. In 1981, with a line-up
that reduced from 6 to 4 elements due to D’Adamo (bassist and lyricist) and
Usai (keyboardist, who started an unsuccessful solo career), De Scalzi, Di
Palo (the new bass player), Belloni (lead guitarist) and Belleno wrote “FS”, a
back-to-the-roots release, even in the shape of a concept album.
The main theme of the lyrics is a journey (FS stands for ‘Ferrovie dello
Stato’, the Italian national railway society) on an hypothetical train and the
meeting with everyone is doing the same trip as the narrator.
“FS” is overall above the average quality level of the same years releases.
“FS” is a very good LP, thanks to its return to the dear old concept album
formula, but also for its great mixture of many different elements, from hard
rock to songwriting, from classic to reggae (!). It just misses some
outstanding tunes, but remains a good and nostalgic listen, and one of the
few albums who really managed to enlighten us for sure in those years.