After a full ten years, Astrolabio, a prog band from Verona, has released their third album. Their last album since "I Paralumi Della Ragione," released in late 2016, has seen some significant lineup changes, with guitarist Paolo Giberti replacing keyboardist Massimo Babbi (guest here).
The rest of the band still features mastermind Michele Antonelli on vocals, guitar, and flute, Paolo Iemmi on bass and vocals, and Alessandro Pontone on drums.
Finally, here comes the brand new "Una Volta Qui Era Tutta Campagna Pubblicitaria," a title that suggests the album's content. The band has always been particularly sensitive to issues related to communication, and this work ideally concludes a trilogy that began with the first album under the Astrolabio name, "L'Isolamento Dei Numeri Pari," dating back to 2015.
The underlying theme, in this case, is the influence that the market, through invasive advertising campaigns, has on our daily lives, with ever new and widespread techniques and technologies.
Harder than previous albums, beautifully played, albeit without excessive virtuosity, with every passage serving the content, this "Una Volta Qui Era Tutta Campagna Pubblicitaria" is a truly remarkable work, fully accomplished from every perspective.
It shows a way of combining quality music, intelligent messages, and personality, without self-referential seriousness, always on the edge of self-aware irony and ruthless analysis. One of the most interesting releases of this first glimpse of 2026.