New Trolls

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New Trolls are an Italian progressive rock band known for their fusion of rock and classical music. Their history is full of line-up changes, band name changes and struggles between band members.

The band was born around mid-1960s when five musicians: Vittorio de Scalzi (guitar, vocals), Nico di Palo (guitar, vocals), Mauro Chiarugi (keyboards), Giorgio D'Adamo (bass, vocals) and Gianni Belleno (drums, vocals) decided to form a band called New Trolls, after the name of the old band of one of them, The Trolls.

After some dates as support band for the Rolling Stones, they released their debut single "Sensazioni" (1967), the first of a very long series of singles. The band was one of the best live acts in Italy at the time, and Hendrix-inspired guitarist Nico Di Palo was one of the first Italian guitar heroes.

Their first full-length album, Senza orario senza bandiera, came in 1968 with lyrics written for them by singer-songwriter Fabrizio de André. This release was very successful at the time. A second album simply titled New Trolls followed two years later (1970) as a compilation of their singles. By the end of the same year the band would face their first line-up change, when Mauro Chiarugi left the band. The New Trolls went on as a quartet.

In 1971 they released the album which was to be their trademark: Concerto Grosso No. 1, with classical music arrangements written by composer Luis Enriquez Bacalov. This record is still considered as one of the most important Italian rock releases ever made, for it was the first effort in Italy to fuse rock music with classical treatments.

The second line-up change came by 1972, when bassist Giorgio D'Adamo was replaced by the italio-Canadian Frank Laugelli. With the new line-up the band released Searching for a land, a double album with some live tracks and mostly sung in English. This was a disjointed album and not a great success, as most of the English-sung albums by Italian prog artists. That same year brought another New Trolls album: Ut, introducing a heavier sound similar to hard rock. Even though the release was successful the band came into creative differences and broke in two parts, with Di Palo and De Scalzi going in two different ways. A legal struggle began for the use of the band name. Di Palo and the other three band members formed Ibis, a band oriented towards hard rock. Vittorio De Scalzi formed another band called New Trolls Atomic System to avoid contractual problems, keeping the style of New Trolls prior to Ut.

New Trolls Atomic System released their first album in 1973 with arrangements similar to the ones used previously in Concerto Grosso No. 1. De Scalzi himself played the flute, keyboards and guitar in this work. The second album, Tempi dispari, was a totally instrumental album recorded in a jazz-rock vein, completely opposite to the New Trolls sound. Incidentally, the band's name for this album returned to the original New Trolls, despite this Tempi dispari was rather unsuccessful. By this time the band recorded a popular rendition of Mussorgsky's A Night on Bare Mountain (Una notte sul Monte Calvo).

The disappointment of Tempi dispari triggered the break up of New Trolls/New Trolls Atomic System. Amazingly, De Scalzi rejoined his old friend/enemy Di Palo and drummer Belleno for a new chapter in New Trolls' history. Bassist Laugelli also returned and singer/guitarist Ricky Belloni was hired to complete the band set. This re-grouping released Concerto Grosso No. 2, a prosecution to their best work, but the critics considered it to be "pale" and too "pop-vein". Later, under Magma Records, an album titled Concerto grosso per i New Trolls was released, including the full tracklisting of both concertos.

In 1976 De Scalzi founded Magma Records, label under which the band released a live album simply titled New Trolls Live which contained songs prior-breakup and some excerpts from Concerto Grosso No. 2.

1978 brought a new member to the band; keyboardist Giorgio Usai, but the band slowly abandoned the rock track to a mainstream pop that gave them many more hits (Quella carezza della sera and Aldebaran among them). The New Trolls kept in this line until early 1990s, when they came to a new split up.

From then on the name New Trolls has appeared esporadically in the music scene. Along the 1990s Vittorio De Scalzi recruited several musicians to make tours playing old New Trolls songs. Some album remakes and best-hits collections have appeared too. In 1999 Di Palo, Belloni and Belleno tried to regroup the band (again) but came into legal conflict with De Scalzi.

In 2001 a two-disc set was released credited to De Scalzi: La storia dei New Trolls. Recorded live, the first disc includes reworkings of old tracks, while the second is a complete rendition of Concerto grosso per i New Trolls with full orchestra.

By 2002 the band lead by De Scalzi kept touring with the Storia dei New Trolls repertoire. Di Palo and former band members regrouped as Il Mito dei New Trolls, only touring and performing old songs, not releasing any record yet.

[edit] External links

• New Trolls on Progboard: New Trolls albums reviews and ratings