Sun Supreme

Following the New Trolls break up, guitarist Nico Di Palo—plus former members Maurizio Salvi, Frank Laugelli and Gianni Belleno—released Canti D'Innocenza, Canti D'Esperienca, with a big question mark and their names on the cover; for legal reasons, they couldn't release it as the New Trolls. It's very much a hard rock album, based on Di Palo's hard-riffing guitar. A reader's poll gave the group their new name, Ibis; and British drummer Ric Parnell, fresh from a defunct Atomic Rooster, replaced Bellano for their second album, Sun Supreme. Now signed to Polydor, the band switched to English-language lyrics, offering a song cycle on each side of the record; and some Nigerian mysticism too! Di Palo's acoustic guitar opens the first side, but "Travelling the Spectrum of the Soul" fires on all cylinders, delivering some heady prog rock. "The Valley of Mists," though, is the high point: After the acoustic intro, the band erupt on a classic riff and prove their metal. "Vision Fulfilled" resolves the cycle, reprising a few themes along the way. The second side offers the three-part "Divinity," an instrumental number that inches much closer to fusion. "Part 2" shows off the band's dexterity, but also includes a lengthy drum solo; while the last section gently fades away. A final album, Ibis, featuring Di Palo and Laugelli and a couple of new players, saw release in 1975. As the band went back to singing mostly in Italian, the album didn't have much of a chance outside of Italy; and Di Palo went back to the New Trolls.