“Stranger Skies” is the fourth discographic chapter of multi-instrumentalist Roberto Vitelli’s Ellesmere project, musically and visually strongly linked to the previous “Wyrd” released in 2021: from an iconographic point of view, in fact, the collaboration with the famous illustrator Rodney Matthews, creator of a marvellous cover painting depicting two opposing worlds, one ‘cold’ – linked to the first four songs of the album – and one ‘warm’ – connected to the two long closing compositions – is here renewed. “Stranger Skies” thus once again deals with the theme of travelling and discovering new, unexplored worlds, the real trait d’union of all Ellesmere’s records.
Musically, we are fronting work that naturally follows in the footsteps of “Wyrd”, a magniloquent and energetic symphonic progressive rock, no longer largely instrumental as previously done but including a real singer that perfectly fits Roberto’s songwriting: his name is John WIlkinson, co-author with Roberto of the title-track lyrics. The main inspiration sources for this album are Genesis’ “A Trick of the Tail” and Rush’s “Moving Pictures”.
As per usual, the Ellesmere project relies on a large first-class collaborators line-up who, in addition to the main core consisting of Roberto Vitelli (bass, keyboards and main songwriter), Mattias Olsson (drums), John Wilkinson (vocals) and Giacomo Anselmi (guitar) respond to the names of Clive Nolan (keyboards), Graeme Taylor (acoustic guitar), Tomas Bodin (keyboards), John Hackett (flute), David Jackson (saxophones and wind instruments), Bob Hodges (keyboards), Stefano Vicarelli (keyboards) and Riccardo Romano (backing vocals, 12-string acoustic guitar). A must for every lover of symphonic prog and modern progressive rock!
Papersleeve CD edition.
