The original IL ROVESCIO DELLA MEDAGLIA (The Reverse of the Medal) were an Italian Progressive Rock outfit formed in the very early 1970s in Rome by guitarist Enzo Vita and original bassist Stefan Urso who went on to form a band called EUROPE, but not the famous one, and not as good. "La Bibbia" (the Bible) was their first album, a concept album based around mythology from the Bible, apparently recorded in a single day and entirely performed live in the studio. Despite the band not yet having nailed their signature Symphonic Progressive sound, and the LP being rough around the edges, it was a hit and it earned them the reputation of being the Italian Black Sabbath. A staggering fifty years on, and the band have returned with an all-new line-up and a reworked, reimagined version of their seminal debut release, this time most definitely not recorded in one day.

First track "Nothingness (Il Nulla)" is essentially just three minutes of ethereal sounding keyboards, flashes of guitar sounds with no real musical structure and sound effects, setting the general mood for the album. This presumably is supposed to represent the Universe before God allegedly created the Earth. It's with the intro to "La Creazione" that the SABBATH comparisons become clear, a bass guitar plays us a simple riff, that is greeted by an explosion of guitars, with noticeably more modern tones than would have been used on the original recording (for the record Enzo Vita now plays an Ibanez J Custom RG which are more commonly thought of as shred machines.) This quickly takes shape into a slab of Doomy Psychedelic pondering with Moog accompaniment, the riff is very much like you might expect Tony Iommi to come up with, but Vita takes many more liberties with the time signatures, with wild jarring excursions and unexpected pauses abound. The lyrics are in Italian, and Nicola Costanti is in fine fettle, vastly improving on the vocal performances from the original release.

The following three songs are all very listenable material, there is an impressive array of musical talent on display, but the structures are freeform and constantly change while maintaining a cohesive sound across the instruments. Drummer Marco Pisaneschi does sterling work keeping up with the constantly shifting rhythmic ideas, and there are some seriously heavy riffs considering when they were written. There's so much experimentation with tempos and time signatures, and so many fanciful jaunts into musical madness that it becomes hard to view them as self-contained songs, but rather they come over as movements in a larger work, continuing and building on the theme. In a last-minute curveball, final piece "The Great Flood (Il Diluvio)" does away with the traditional band format entirely, preferring to form around a trippy Church Organ and a cacophony of synth effects. There isn't a great deal of vocals, but what there are sound more like a preacher extolling the Lord to his congregation than a rock song. Interesting.

Those expecting a polished Symphonic Metal record that the band are well known for will possibly find themselves disappointed as even in its rerecorded form the album is basic in terms of the instruments used, but not in its composition, which is a an early Proto-Metal album loaded with Progressive tendencies. This version of it is beautifully recorded and performed, it is a solid if meandering thirty minutes, packed full of virtuoso runs performed in perfect unison of guitar and bass, with pleasing retro synth sounds.
 For those with the CD in hand, there are also three alternate versions of tracks from the album, musically the same but with English vocals, a nice addition for the linguistically challenged among us.