Band:	Teramaze
Album:	Sorella Minore
Style:	Progressive metal
Release date:	May 2021

01. Sorella Minore
02. Stone
03. Take Your Shot
04. Between These Shadows

Teramaze unleash their 2112 on the world.

I'll be honest, when I started writing front page reviews for the site just over 2 years ago, I didn't expect Teramaze to be my most reviewed band by this point, considering I'd only heard one album by them, Her Halo, at that point in time. However, 2019's Are We Soldiers seems to have been just the beginning of a rich surge of inspiration for Dean Wells et al, and a combination of their newfound productivity and my lack of anything else to do in lockdown has given me the opportunity to now review two more records by the Australian prog outfit, with 2020's I Wonder swiftly followed by Sorella Minore. Not that I'm complaining; I liked both Are We Soldiers and I Wonder a fair amount, even if I did slightly miss the style of Her Halo and find both of those albums to be a bit too long for their own good. Sorella Minore addresses both of those points.

Her Helo was one of the strongest albums with a 'classic' melodic prog metal sound of the past decade; Are We Soldiers and I Wonder both went in a more modern prog direction, but Sorella Minore returns to Her Halo territory, which shouldn't be a surprise, since the story is a sequel to that of Her Halo. As well as returning to that album's story, it also sees a return of that album's singer, Nathan Peachey, on the title track, along with additional guest features on the track from Silvio Massaro and Jennifer Borg, both vocalists of other Australian prog bands (Vanishing Point and Divine Ascension, respectively). Four vocalists sounds like a lot for one song, until you realize that "Sorella Minore" is 25 minutes long. That's right, this is a full-on prog metal epic, and one that opens the album, no less. For a band that, as far as I can tell, previously had a longest song that lasted only half the runtime of "Sorella Minore", this is a truly ambitious attempt, and one that had every possibility of failing spectacularly. Thankfully, Dean Wells has pulled it off admirably.

Making a prog song this long work takes skill; more atmospheric styles of metal can rely on gradual builds and tension-building repetition to keep things interesting over an extended period of time, but for a busier, more immediate sound such as this, one needs to deliver music that is both consistently engaging, with satisfying vocal hooks and instrumentation, but also coherent, in order to justify putting everything into a single package rather than separate tracks. Teramaze do a really great job of managing this; there's a few central motifs that re-occur throughout the track in order to keep everything focused and cohesive, and these motifs are all enjoyable (the main chorus was embedded in my brain after the first listen).

They also do a solid job of shifting gears and going off on tangents without feeling like they're losing direction, knowing when to shoot off in one direction and when to loop back around. In terms of reference points, I find myself thinking of Kamelot quite a bit whilst listening to "Sorella Minore", as well as perhaps Anubis Gate and Seventh Wonder, and even Avantasia in one bit near the end, mainly due to the tone of that vocalist's voice. On the topic of vocalists, all four make solid contributions to this song, and the variation in voices only adds to the song's appeal. Overall, I have to say I'm really impressed by what Teramaze pulled off on the title track.

I mentioned earlier that Sorella Minore addresses the issue of excessive length that I had with the last couple of albums. How can this be the case for an album that opens with a 25-minute song? Well, this is where the 2112 comparison comes in: there's only 4 songs in total on Sorella Minore, and the remaining three combined barely run for half the length of the title track. A problem I've always had with 2112 is, as good as "2112" is, I've never found the remainder of the album to be able to live up to it, and Sorella Minore has the same issue.

It's not like the rest of the album is bad; "Stone" is a serviceable ballad-esque song, "Take Your Shot" powers along with enjoyable energy, and "Between These Shadows" replicates the delicate charm of I Wonder's title track. Wells also continues to establish himself as a worthy lead vocalist for the band on each of these tracks. However, when listening to the album, on each listen I found myself more interested in replaying "Sorella Minore" than experiencing the song I was listening to at that time. Of the trio, "Between These Shadows" is the strongest, with some pleasant vocal and guitar melodies; however, I must admit I would be surprised if I revisit these three songs with anywhere near the regularity that I return to "Sorella Minore".

Out of the three albums that Teramaze have released in the past couple of years, Sorella Minore is definitely the one that I've most enjoyed sticking on replay for review purposes, and given that I've generally been more inclined towards modern prog than more classic-sounding styles in recent years, I think that should be a real endorsement of how good Teramaze are at writing this type of music. Should they read this, the band might be slightly disappointed to see me favour the title track so much over the other songs, but I have to suspect that "Sorella Minore" was the real passion project on this album, and if that's the case, they should take great pride in what they've pulled off.