Magni Animi Viri - "Heroes Temporis" Review

Artist/ Band: Magni Animi Viri
Title: Heroes Temporis
Label: Self release
Year of Release: 2007
Artist/ Band Link (click for details/ ordering)

The Review:

What happens when you take a classical musician (Giancarlo Trotta) and prog musician (Luca Contegiacomo), well you get a band called Magni Animi Viri. Their debut is a new classical based progressive hard rock concept album entitled Heroes Temporis which is all sung in Italian & Latin. All of the keyboards and programming are handled by Trotta and Contegiacomo. Joining these two on this modern rock opera are Marco Sfogli (James LaBrie) on guitar, Randy Coven (ARK) on bass, John Macaluso (Yngwie Malmsteen, ARK) on drums, and a full orchestra to help flesh out the music.

Since Heroes Temporis is sung in a Italian and Latin, the band included a brochure in English that explains the whole project and storyline, which is quite helpful. I saw that this booklet is made available on their site for those that purchase the CD.

To describe the sound of Magni Animi Viri, I found they combine two worlds aside from classical & opera. Those worlds are 70's Italian prog like, Banco & PFM, and a modern prog-metal like Ayreon and Avantasia. This mesh features the best of both worlds in a symphonic & classical oriented way. It will take a few listens to fully get into the music but once you do you‘ll want to revisit it often. Highly recommended

Reviewed by Ron Fuchs on June 22nd, 2007

Tracks:

1. Colonna Sonora

2. Heroes...

3. ...Temporis

4. Intus

5. Finche

6. Pensieri

7. Tertia viqilia

8. Mai piu

9. Desertanima

10. Vorrei

11. Come un falco

12. Uritur

13. Sai cose

14. Immenso

15. Fortis

16. Senza respiro

17. Outro

18. CS Instrumental