War in the Night Before

WAR IN THE NIGHT BEFORE is the second album by THE UNDERGROUND SET, a pseudonymous project featuring the members of progressive rock band NUOVA IDEA. Due to contractual reasons, in the early '70s they were active under various additional monikers, including The Psychground Group and The Hot Underground. However, these differently named projects all served as ways to contribute music to the then-flourishing Italian market of television song themes and film soundtracks.

It is no coincidence that the album's producer is Gianfranco Reverberi -- a key figure in Italian pop during the '60s and '70s (he collaborated with major artists like Giorgio Gaber, Luigi Tenco, Gino Paoli, Bruno Lauzi, and Lucio Dalla), as well as a prolific composer who wrote scores for plenty of genre films, from westerns and erotic flicks, to noirs and musical comedies. In addition to producing, Reverberi penned all the songs in the album under the pseudonym Ninety, which he used for his library releases. He then entrusted the musical execution to the skilled hands of Marco Zoccheddu and Claudio Ghiglino on guitars, Giorgio Usai on keyboards, Enrico Casagni on bass and flute, and Paolo Siani on drums.

The band's style is definitely "stoner rock" (a term coined years later), with a sharp, fuzz-laden sound infused with elements of psychedelia, early prog, and rhythm'n'blues. Here, they take us on a journey across distortion-filled tracks ("War in the Night Before", "Hopeless Train"), solemn psychedelic ballads ("Top Invocation," "Cool Paradise", "Una Lettera"), fuzz-driven energy ("Useless Obsession", "Cronic Illness") and caustic riffs ("Libitum," "Car Driving").

WAR IN THE NIGHT BEFORE is a compendium of the finest psychedelic hard rock produced in Italy in the early '70s. While undoubtedly influenced by some of the top international acts of the time (think Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, and Led Zeppelin), it's uniquely infused with an original, action-movie cinematic flair reminiscent of Reverberi's soundtracks from those years.