Nico’s Alchemy are a band built around virtuoso Italian guitarist Nico Tamburella but thankfully that doesn’t mean that Fundamental Darkness is a non-stop, million notes a second, ego trip – as opening instrumental ‘No Time For Sadness’ quickly demonstrates. The opening chords slide from speaker to speaker while the fluid, rounded lead notes flicker across the top before the drums and bass crash into the fray. At this point a heavy rock riff takes centre stage and is simply complimented by some quality lead embellishments and a well structured solo.
Singer Candido makes his appearance with the advent of track two - a strong rock song called ‘It’s Enough’ - and quickly demonstrates the worth of his classic rock vocals. Indeed when you also take into account the straightforward, hard hitting drumming of Dave Wire and the strong, pulsing bass work of Danni Stanner it’s obvious that Nico has surrounded himself with a top notch band. Of course at the end of the day it is the song writing that really makes a good rock album and when Nico’s Alchemy get it just right they are capable of producing some excellent tracks. During ‘Save Me Jesus’, ‘Shine On’ and ‘Fading Away’ you can’t help thinking they should ditch the focus on Nico’s prodigious talent and simply concentrate on being a fine melodic rock band.
There are three other instrumental pieces – aside from opener ‘No Time For Sadness’ - which shine the spotlight firmly on Nico and two of them work as well as that opening gambit. ‘A Leap In Space’ has plenty of breathing room for the effectively chosen notes and opts for atmosphere instead of impressing with technical wizardry. ‘Sleeping With The Devil’ is a more rocking piece which brings to mind some of Satriani’s groove orientated work. Unfortunately the final instrumental, the album’s title track doesn’t quite work. It sounds badly in need of a vocal line, despite the outstanding lead work and again has you wondering if the band wouldn’t be better off concentrating on material like the excellent ‘Shine On’ and ‘Fading Away’. To my mind at least Nico is at his most effective when he’s working within the structure of a song. Still, overall, there’s plenty within Nico’s Fundamental Darkness for both fans of uplifting melodic rock and connoisseurs of lead guitar brilliance.
www.myspace.com/nicosalchemy
