Goblin - Deep Rock

Goblin's story is intimately tied to the Seventies. That decade of euphoric, overflowing creativity reshaped Italy just as it was emerging from the eldorado of the economic boom and the "fabulous Sixties". A season of inexhaustible musical ferment (prog, singer-songwriters, but also electronics, punk, wave) and happy cross-pollination with other arts, visual arts first and foremost. The big screen became the natural frontier for an extraordinary generation of composers: Ennio Morricone, Pino Donaggio, Riz Ortolani, Armando Trovajoli, Franco Micalizzi & co. made a decisive contribution to the resurgence of genre cinema, born in the second half of the Fifties and already shaped by the skilled hands of directors like Mario Bava and Sergio Leone. But in the Seventies the phenomenon grew exponentially, and found one of its absolute peaks in the partnership between Dario Argento and Goblin.

The Roman director's new giallo-horror cinema married sounds that were completely unprecedented for that kind of film. Progressive, electronics, jazz, funk, psychedelia, heavy metal were the new sonic chills of a unique, revolutionary strand that would be fully understood (perhaps) only two decades later. With praise from Quentin Tarantino and a new generation of pulp "cannibals". And with the final retirement of an entire critical school and its bigoted prejudices.

Goblin, then, were Argento's musical arm, the secret weapon capable of accompanying his "executioner's camera" and triggering terror even where images alone couldn't reach (just think of the chilling vocoder scream in "Tenebre"). Yet it would be limiting to reduce them to just that. Their long, troubled career was also enriched by several other film collaborations (the one with Romero is perhaps the most prestigious) as well as singular experiments on their own (Roller being the most significant). The result was a mix of masterpieces, confirmations and missteps, but no one could ever accuse the Roman band of lacking courage or consistency with their own identity.

The "Goblin case" has its roots in that para-prog scene that flourished across Italy at the dawn of the Seventies, riding the British wave of King Crimson, Genesis, Yes and Emerson Lake & Palmer. Amid this swarm of bands with lofty, fairy-tale-like names, four musicians with wildly different backgrounds also made their way forward: Claudio Simonetti, Fabio Pignatelli, Massimo Morante and Agostino Marangolo. Their meeting under the fortunate Goblin banner would come about by a roundabout route, along the Rome-London axis.

The son of a musician father - Enrico was a respected composer who would even become a hit-maker with the theme for the TV drama "Gamma" - keyboardist Claudio Simonetti was first and foremost a classically trained musician. Born in São Paulo, Brazil (19/2/1952) but thoroughly Roman in every other respect, he began studying piano at 8 and entered the Santa Cecilia Conservatory at 14. But his real passion was rock, perhaps the kind that flirted most with classical music (the prog of Nice and Emerson Lake & Palmer), but also the heavier stuff (Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin). His first bands grew out of this blend of styles and attitudes. His debut with Il Ritratto di Dorian Gray saw him alongside Walter Martino (drums) and Massimo Giorgi (bass and vocals) in a trio also backed by Luciano Regoli (vocals), Fernando Fera and Roberto Gardin on guitars. They were among the first to play symphonic rock in Italy, and their long suites, embellished with superb technique, won acclaim in live performances, including one at the 1971 Caracalla Festival. But it was a short-lived experience, which left behind no actual recordings and came to an end quickly.

Having left Dorian Gray behind, Simonetti set off for London, the mecca of prog, in search of his fortune. Together with Massimo Morante and Giancarlo Sorbello, he managed to get in touch with the well-known sound engineer and producer Eddie Offord to play him some demos. Offord was enthusiastic about the material and offered to produce the album after the American tour with Yes. For the new outfit, named Oliver, English singer Clive Haynes was also recruited, along with two Roman musicians: bassist Fabio Pignatelli and drummer Carlo Bordini. Offord, however, carried on with the Yes tour and kept stalling: left alone in London, the band only managed a few live sessions and, disheartened, abandoned their English dream.

Back in Rome, however, Oliver didn't give up, and thanks in part to the name of maestro Enrico Simonetti, they managed to land a contract with Cinevox, a label specializing in soundtracks. With new singer Tony Tartarini replacing Clive Haynes and under the new name Cherry Five, they finally released their first album (Cherry Five, 1974), steeped in typically progressive sounds. It wasn't a hit, but it was from this platform that Goblin took off. That same year, in fact, after parting ways with Tartarini and Bordini, the band took shape in its first core line-up: Simonetti (keyboards), Martino (drums), Pignatelli (bass) and Morante (guitar).

Dario Argento is not just a director. Skeletal, wild-eyed, with a Benedictine-monk haircut, he is a mask, a living icon of a wholly new way of making cinema. His blood-soaked films disturb, fascinate and repel - depending on the case - an Italy where, up to that point, only Bava and a few others had dared so much. "My cinema is a celebration of the pleasure of fear," he says, defying the dogmas of a snobbish critical establishment that brands horror aesthetics as "subculture". In reality, his films are a rare example of how to combine mass entertainment with sophisticated experimentation (the jolting lighting, the use of the camera, the solo sequences), in line with the most advanced trends in international cinema. Perhaps also because Argento understands the modernity of the thriller genre, "the wildest and most untamed of all genres".

Features like "Il gatto a nove code", "Quattro mosche di velluto grigio" and "L'uccello dalle piume di cristallo" had already crowned him the undisputed king of a new genre, halfway between giallo and horror. But the knockout blow was still missing. The script already existed, as did the title, and it was a statement in itself: Profondo Rosso. Now what was needed was a special soundtrack, different from all the others. A rock score. Because - as Roberto Curti argues (Rock-O-Rama) - Argento had from the very start built his films according to a visual-sonic texture that drew on the rhythmic and sensory suggestions of rock music: from the murder sequences, conceived as virtuoso solos, to the innovative use of music itself, no longer a simple contrapuntal-emotional accompaniment, but an integral part of the narrative. Indeed, for "Quattro mosche di velluto grigio" he had already tried to get Deep Purple on board, but hadn't managed to strike a deal, and had ended up entrusting the job to Morricone. Now was the right moment to try again. Perhaps looking across the Channel, to that "Tubular Bells" by Mike Oldfield which, just two years after its release, had already become a landmark.

Legend has it that it was Daria Nicolodi, the spectral actress and Argento's wife, who suggested to her husband that he contact the young Goblin, after being left shaken by one of their tracks, "The Swan Is A Murder Part. 1" (and that scream would later be reused in a scene from the film). But it was publisher Carlo Bixio who actually introduced the group to Dario Argento in the Cinevox offices. It was the classic life-changing encounter. The chemistry with the director clicked immediately, and on top of that, there was also a hand from a top-notch jazz musician like Giorgio Gaslini, who wrote several tracks ("Wild Session", "Deep Shadows", "Scool At Night" and "Gianna"), allowing Simonetti & co. to rearrange them in a prog key.

The most famous thriller theme in Italian cinema was born in a single night. In a basement studio beneath the Roman basilica on Piazza Euclide, dominated by a large pipe organ (and indeed part of the sounds were recorded right there in the church). Gaslini assisted Goblin - joined at that point by brothers Agostino and Antonio Marangolo, on drums and keyboards respectively - through feverish sessions that went on until dawn. It was Pignatelli, however, who had the flash of genius: he came up with the main theme "Profondo Rosso" and hit the jackpot. That obsessive arpeggio is the key to everything, a few guitar chords recurring like a nightmare (also reproduced with minimoog and harpsichord), then the grinding bass that hits you in the gut, building to the final apotheosis: a bleak organ sonata, a requiem dripping with blood (that of Carlo's mother, one of the victims, as it happens). It's the theme that would make Goblin's fortune, bringing them worldwide recognition, a platinum record (4 million copies sold), and nearly a year at the top of the singles charts.

But the rest of the album is also a kaleidoscope of ideas. Into their lavish sonic architecture, Goblin pour everything: hard rock, prog, gothic, electronics, jazz. And they resort to all manner of tricks and devices: "They used music boxes and grand orchestras, pounded on timpani and stuffed foam rubber under the guitar strings to mute the sound, used noise as if it were sound and pushed the capabilities of keyboards (meagre by today's standards) to their limit, lifted 'Tubular Bells' for 'Mad Puppet' (\"Yes, but it was Dario who asked us for a piece like that…\") and stole a fragment of Cherry Five's 'The Swan Is A Murderer' to build 'Wild Session'…" (Lucio Mazzi, Pagine 70).

And above all, Profondo Rosso hits the target that every soundtrack aims for: a perfect fit between image and sound. Hence the overture with the 16 chilling seconds of a marionette's giggling in "Mad Puppet's Laughs", the deathly nursery-rhyme chant of "School At Night", amid electronic gusts, violin and harp embroidery and a music box that "sinister" barely begins to describe; and then the prog-on-the-verge-of-a-nervous-breakdown of "Death Dies", propped up by urgent drumming and the keyboard's elusive chimes, and the sly, morbid guitar work of "Mad Puppet". Then come the more muted moments, with sax, piano and flute easing the tension in "Gianna" (dedicated to a character in the film, the journalist Gianna Brezzi), the prog arabesques swirling in the black vortex of "Wild Session", and the acid jam of "Deep Shadows", which sets up the grand finale of the title track.

Profondo Rosso is also the first instance of a soundtrack performed by an Italian rock band, and at a volume that was very high for the time. The 1996 CD reissue also included all the different versions of the tracks featured in the film but left off the vinyl edition: the tracklist thus grew from 7 to 28 tracks, adding a few gems (for instance, the celesta version of "School At Night") but at the cost of a certain bloatedness that dilutes the tension of the original work.

It's a period of hyperactivity for the band, which settles into a new line-up with Marangolo definitively taking over from Martino (about to join Libra) and with the arrival of Maurizio Guarini (keyboards).

This new line-up decides to release a new album, initially unconnected to any film project, even though some tracks ("Roller", "Snip Snap", "Goblin" and "Dr. Frankenstein") would later be used in George Romero's film "Martin – Wampyr".

Entirely instrumental, and considered by many to be Goblin's "most progressive" album, Roller (1976) unleashes a powerful, gothic sound along the lines of Profondo Rosso, especially on the title track, propelled by organ pipes soon joined by a forceful, building bass-drums interplay, with the keyboards painting evocative, unsettling scenery. The rest of the record swings between Floyd-style psychedelic languor (the pond of "Aquaman", barely rippled by Morante's guitar solo), loose-limbed funk progressions ("Snip Snap"), electronic spirals ("Dr. Frankenstein", with a wild acid coda) and the pianistic virtuosity of a thoroughly inspired Simonetti ("Il risveglio del serpente", rounded out with sax and piano).

The album's real tour de force, though, is the title track "Goblin" itself, a King Crimson-esque suite running over ten minutes, with jazz inserts and constant shifts in direction: from the piano's grim tolling to an explosion of guitar, bass and drums, from soft acoustic arpeggios to keyboard openings, with the ever-inventive rhythm section holding it all together and Marangolo stealing the show with a stormy solo.

That same year Goblin returned to film work with a soundtrack (Perché si uccidono) that went largely unnoticed, perhaps also because it was released under the enigmatic moniker Reale Impero Britannico. Destined to become a cult rarity, the album confirms the band's strong progressive streak without adding anything particularly significant to its sound.

But for Goblin the next breakthrough is just around the corner, and once again it will be Dario Argento who sets it off.

A passionate "non-musician" and experimenter in the field of film scores, the director is by now the band's official advisor and one of the main architects of the musical evolution that would lead to Suspiria. Since this was a work that reinvented the most classic elements of his cinema in fairy-tale terms (the spasmodic suspense, the surprise entrances of the mysterious killer, the brutality of the murders, the protagonist's "visual" memory), Argento asked Goblin for a score that was less tight and aggressive, not built around nerve-racking rhythms, but more ambient and atmospheric. He encouraged them to use then-cutting-edge technology like the sequencer, while at the same time drawing on ancient medieval songs (such as the 14th/15th-century dirge "Le tre streghe sull'albero", which would underpin the main theme) and reviving old instruments like the celesta and the bouzouki (a one-of-a-kind instrument owned by Argento himself), and to make demos that sounded "like Kraftwerk".

Suspiria (1977) is thus a kind of delta into whose dense, murky waters flow some of the most significant sonic currents of the decade. Across the eight "sequences" that make up the soundtrack to Argento's eponymous masterpiece lie prog roots, echoes of Nordic and Central European folklore, minimalism, electronic inserts and manipulations that look to kraut and Kraftwerk, ethnic and world-music echoes and suggestions, and hints of synth and dark ambient music. In practice, a significant slice of the Seventies and a slice of the Eighties intersect here in a unique subset all their own.

The band (at the peak of its classic quartet line-up: Simonetti-Pignatelli-Morante-Marangolo, joined for the occasion by Guarini on keyboards and by Marangolo's brother Antonio on sax) put a great deal of themselves into the recording process, improvising and overhauling almost every composition.

"Suspiria", the album's opener and the film's main theme, is a masterpiece of dreamlike, esoteric suspension divided into three parts: in the first, the guitar's needle-sharp picking and the vibraphone's music-box counterpoint spin an obsessive, minimal melody in the vein of "Profondo Rosso", but (only seemingly) softer, more regressive, more ritualistic, accompanied by the mellotron's acid, cutting gusts, the bouzouki's muffled rumbles and malevolent witchy whispers; in the second there's a building break of clear prog pedigree, triggered by a black-mass organ, electric guitar and the polyrhythmic entrance of the percussion, with the synth keyboards taking over the central theme; in the third, after a brief electronic fade, the harmonic circle closes by repeating the first part with lethal variations.

The ethnic and tribal elements woven into the new Goblin sound stand out with devastating clarity from the second track onward, "Witch": an almost pow-wow-like opening with rolling drums and piercing, propitiatory cries, then further intoned voices that, as in a satanic choir, blend with spectral synths, sound effects simulating the stormy darkness of a Walpurgis Night, tolling bells and a glassy bass holding the same mesmeric note throughout. "Opening To The Sighs" is a drone fragment that cuts off abruptly in an analogue edit straight into the following "Sighs": we're still deep in the witches' sabbath here: demonic hisses, sighs, avant-garde-style vocalizations, kept in time by the insistent arpeggio of the acoustic guitar doubled by the celesta.

"Markos" is the summa of the sonic patchwork laid out by Simonetti and co.: traditional Greek sounds (almost sirtaki) graft themselves onto an electronic weave with a Kraftwerk-like flavour, while a heavily effected, reverb-drenched bass fuels robotic funk phrasing, and jazzy percussion drifts in and out of the backing track. On the gorgeous "Black Forest", by contrast, it's Goblin's folk-prog soul that reasserts itself, in a gothic, medieval-tinged key: insistent acoustic guitar phrasing and arabesques of organ and mellotron intertwine with Pignatelli's bass, liquid and hypnotic to the point of dub, and with a jazz-derived sax line; these then take over, shaping a jam in which Morante's guitar solos alternate with those of sax and synth, while the ending loops back round to the opening. "Blind Concert" reprises the dirge of "Suspiria", mixing it over a disco-funk bassline and dressing it with electronic flourishes that are almost glitch ante-litteram; discreet touches of electric guitar and keyboards, along with the drums' counter-breaks, heighten the track's unprecedented black-music overtones.

The album closes with "Death Valzer", which refers to the classical dance academy in which the whole film is set, and, beneath its seemingly carefree Mitteleuropean air, plants a terrifying suspicion: what putrescent horrors lurk in the attic or the cellars of the old building?

With Suspiria, Argento would seal his shift from thriller to neo-gothic, esoteric horror, while Goblin would reach the experimental peak of their visionary, horror-steeped art.

Also in '77 came The Way of Drugs, another interesting soundtrack, divided into 13 "sequences" and built around a fine psych-funk theme in the style of the Italian "poliziottesco". It would be reissued by Cinevox in 1999, for the benefit of a new generation of devotees. The main theme would later be included on the compilation "Beretta 70", an unmissable anthology dedicated to that strand of cinema, featuring excerpts from soundtracks by Micalizzi, Bacalov, Frizzi, Trovajoli, Cipriani and the De Angelis brothers.

But Goblin wanted to prove they could do without the big screen. So, having lost Guarini along the way, in 1978 the quartet threw themselves into an ambitious new project. Il fantastico viaggio del bagarozzo Mark (one of the most bizarre titles ever!) featured sung tracks (in Italian) for the first time, with Morante making his debut as a singer and writing all the lyrics. It's an album of pure, at times naive prog, free of any cinematic constraints, even though it was conceived as the soundtrack to an imaginary animated film, in the vein of the Beatles' "Yellow Submarine". A concept album, then, dedicated to the fantastical adventures of "bagarozzo Mark", an inhabitant of the land of Goblin, as he encounters other outlandish creatures.

More overtly prog episodes, poised between Elp-style grandiosity and blues-jazz inflections ("Mark Il Bagarozzo", "Le cascate di Viridiana", "Terra Di Goblin"), alternate with fairy-tale pieces leaning more towards the melodic song form ("Opera Magnifica"), while the two paranoid nightmares of "La Danza" and "Notte" settle the debt owed to Argento's soundtracks (and, not by chance, they would end up in two films: George Romero's "Wampyr" and Bruno Mattei's "L'altro inferno"). The closing "…E Suono Rock" is almost a tribute to their idol Keith Emerson, with Simonetti cutting loose behind the keyboards and the usual relentless rhythm tandem of Marangolo and Pignatelli pounding away hard.

The album, destined to become a cult fetish object for fans and collectors, actually marked Goblin's first real commercial flop: the framework is the tried-and-tested one, but Morante's voice is ungainly and certain sounds now come across as needlessly pompous and stale, despite a few electronic updates (notably on "Un Ragazzo d'Argento").

The band, however, didn't give up, and came back fighting with the score for Zombi (Dawn Of The Dead). A pivotal work in their discography, and not only because of the stature of the film and its director, George A. Romero, a master of international horror. It was naturally Argento who supplied the right "references" to his illustrious American colleague, putting Simonetti and co.'s music at the service of his grotesque grand guignol.

The "dark" origins of the living-dead myth are celebrated in an orgy of percussion, inhuman screams and deafening volumes. Goblin confirm their eclecticism, moving with nonchalance from electronics-laden rock gallops (the title track) to full-throttle hard-rock riffs ("Zaratozom"), from the honky-tonk piano of "Torte in faccia" to the African rhythms of "Safari", from the country-western violin of "Tirassegno" to the piano phrasing of "Oblio" and "Risveglio".

This soundtrack, too, was later reissued twenty years on, adding seven alternate takes and bonus tracks to the original songs.

Then, however, prolific output came hand in hand with confusion. Carlo Pennisi picked up the guitar in Morante's place, seeking solo glory under the Zerolandia banner. And the band, with ever-shifting line-ups, churned out a string of new soundtracks: Patrick, Buio Omega and Contamination as a quartet (Pignatelli, Marangolo, Guarini and Pennisi), Squadra Antigangster and Antimafia with the same line-up, save for Simonetti replacing Guarini. These, though, were minor works in their long trajectory.

Worn out by exhausting studio sessions and ground down by internal friction, with Marangolo and Pignatelli determined to carry on down the road of film music and Simonetti drawn towards new sonic horizons, Goblin fell into crisis — not helped by a bleak period in the musicians' personal lives: within the space of three months, the fathers of both Simonetti and Morante died, along with the father of Cesare Andrea Bixio, the band's producer. "We broke up in 1978 because the era of rock was over," Simonetti would explain. "The way of making music had changed completely. On one hand we were an atypical band, on the other people weren't interested in progressive rock any more."

In truth, Goblin never officially broke up. It's just that each member of the group went their own way. Simonetti, by then a celebrity thanks in part to his television appearances, turned into a pioneer of italo-disco, crafting several worthwhile works (for Easy Going and Vivian Vee) and even having fun in the role of pure jester alongside Claudio Cecchetto ("Gioca Joeur"). Morante ventured into a singing career, releasing three albums — Down With (1980), Corpo a corpo (1982) and Esclusivo (1983) — before becoming a top-flight session man. Marangolo kept the banner of progressive flying high by joining Giovanni Tommaso and Danilo Rea's Perigeo.

Amid all this upheaval, no one laid claim to the Goblin name, and so it was Pignatelli who took it for himself, thanks to a legal clause written into the old contract.

Return to Darkness

But the end hasn't come yet for Goblin. Fate had a stunning comeback in store, once again under the wing of their friend Dario Argento.

Credited to Goblin in every sense but released under the name Simonetti-Pignatelli-Morante for contractual reasons, the soundtrack to Tenebre (1982) marks the Roman outfit's electronic turn. A revolution already hinted at by the new lineup, with Marangolo replaced by Simonetti's electronic drums, by then the guru of the new generation of synth-pop. One can imagine the reaction of the average prog fan faced with the vocoder-and-drum-machine incipit of the title track... Probably much the same reaction Fabio Pignatelli had when he was asked to reunite Goblin: initially reluctant to merge his own path with the new ace of Italian disco-music, the bassist eventually agreed, thanks in part to Argento's intercession, eager to have the full lineup back together. And, magically, the chemistry returns. With the same director, by now almost an extra member of the band, stepping in during editing and cutting. The result is a kind of horror-dance, always tense, nimble and full of twists, just like the excellent film itself.

Simonetti's voice, filtered through a vocoder intoning "Paura Paura Paura", is another flash of genius in a main theme that takes off around the drum machine's dark pulse and a sumptuous synthetic melody. It's the linchpin of the entire film. After prog, the Roman ensemble opens a new horizon for horror cinema: that of electronics and synth-pop, managing to update their nightmarish atmospheres to the sound of the '80s.

But the group also finds its best form elsewhere on the record, from the icy electronic spirals of "Gemini", with a chill always lurking around the corner, to the epic "Flashing", built on rubbery layers of keyboards propped up by the obsessive pulse of the drum machine, from the disco swagger of "Lesbo" to the ethereal (but no less unsettling) music-box of "Slow Circus".

The complete edition was released by Cinevox in 1997, adding 11 tracks between bonus tracks and alternate film versions to the eight tracks of the original release.

Though separated by conflicting ideas and goals – with Simonetti still pursuing a solo career and Pignatelli the faithful keeper of the Goblin name (in 1982, together with Maurizio Guarini, Mauro Lusini, Marco Rinalduzzi and Derek Wilson, he took part in the ill-fated Volo project, which only yielded a Discoring theme tune) – the two linchpins of the Roman band reunite once again, two years later, for the music of Dario Argento's new film. The ambitious and controversial Phenomena (1984) is probably the Roman director's last film of real merit, and perhaps also Goblin's last great moment, by then fully committed to the cause of electronic music, complete with synths and computers.

Simonetti crafts the hypnotic keyboard score of the title track on his keyboards, embellished by the vocalizing of Italian-American soprano Pina Magri in a swirling crescendo that also makes room for a guitar solo. Pignatelli, meanwhile, collaborates on the other four original pieces: "Jennifer" rocks gently in a menacing calm, "The Wind" summons ghosts amid icy gusts of synths, with Magri again scaling the octaves, "Sleepwalking" is a fine piece of hammering electro-pop, and the artificial sinuousness of "Jennifer's Friends" best seals the synthetic formula of a Goblin re-emerged from Tenebre.

The unusual tandem is clearly in good form, then, even though Argento chooses to use their pieces sparingly in the film, adding others by Motorhead, Iron Maiden, Bill Wyman & Terry Taylor and Simon Boswell.

By contrast, it's Simonetti alone who takes part in the splatter project Dèmoni, Argento's new nightmare, assisted by Lamberto Bava and effects artist Sergio Stivaletti, who brings to life the monstrous creatures of the title.

This time the new frontier is heavy metal, a genre the Roman director had always had a soft spot for and which literally floods the film, with tracks by Motley Crue, Scorpions, Saxon, Accept. Yet Simonetti's unmistakable touch still manages to stand out: the galloping "Killing", the gloomy abyss of "Threat" and "The Evil One", the crepuscular melancholy of "Out Of Time" renew what has by now become a true trademark of every Argento soundtrack.

In truth, Argento's cinema is by now in free fall. "Less ideas, more blood" seems to be the only philosophy behind films that have almost entirely lost the murky magic of the previous decade. So Opera too falls short of expectations, despite a thoroughly respectable soundtrack. Once again Simonetti lends a hand with the delicate title track and three other pieces ("Crows", "Confusion" and "Cosmo"), but some of his tracks were left out to make room for contributions from international artists such as Bill Wyman & Terry Taylor, Roger Eno and Brian Eno.

In 1989 it's Pignatelli's turn alone, joined by none other than Simonetti's own idol, Keith Emerson, for the music of a new gruesome horror film from the Argento stable: La Chiesa. This time the Roman director takes on the role of producer, leaving the camera work to young Michele Soavi. Goblin's bassist manages to conjure up the band's typically bleak and sinister atmospheres, adding heavy doses of mystical emphasis (the title track) and demonic suggestion ("Possessione", "Lotte").

In the '90s, Goblin's workshop effectively closes down. Only a few anthologies come out, dredging up and recycling old hits, fueling a reputation that by now is almost greater abroad than in Italy: The Goblin's Collection 1975-1989 (1995), The Original Remix Collection Volume 1 (1998), The Fantastic Journey Of Goblin (2000, featuring a live recording from a 1979 concert). And while the band's former members carry on their musical careers elsewhere, Simonetti keeps going solo, until 2000, when he forms his new band: Demonia.

It had been 22 years since the full lineup last existed, when suddenly the long hibernation came to an end. Non ho sonno (2000) sounds almost like a call to arms, and the architect behind it could only be, once again, Dario Argento, in his latest, horror-drenched incarnation. A grand-scale reawakening, then, for an ensemble that finally found itself back in its classic line-up, with Marangolo returning behind the drums to join Morante, Pignatelli and Simonetti, bringing the band's style back closer to its 70s sound, albeit duly updated with new technology.

Morante's scraping guitar pairs with Simonetti's pianistic flourishes and liquid keyboards on the title track, almost a summa of Goblin's two main souls (prog-rock and electronics). This energetic mood also dominates other tracks: the hard-rock of "Killer On The Train" rises above an epic bassline, "Arpeggio-End Title" almost reprises the riff of "Profondo Rosso", "Death Farm" is another powerful anthem built on rhythms and scene changes that are almost death-progressive-metal, while a brief percussive solo from Agostino Marangolo shakes up "Associated Dead". The delicate ballads "Endless Love", with soprano Vesna Duganova's vocalizing, and "Ulisse", with Simonetti's dreamy keyboards and Antonio Marangolo's fairy-tale sax, instead highlight the album's more reflective, melancholy moments.

All well made, on paper. And yet Non ho sonno is missing something. Simonetti himself admits as much: "It was a purely technological thing, nothing more. Absolutely no feeling of any kind. A cold affair, really." From there, compounded by a falling-out with Pignatelli over an American tour, came his death sentence on the entire Goblin project: "As far as I'm concerned, it's the last thing we do together. We'd already split up once because we didn't get along... More than 20 years on, nothing has changed. It's simply a matter of personal relationships."

Simonetti would continue his run with the no-less-shadowy Demonia, exploring new gothic suggestions alongside reworkings of Goblin's old repertoire, complete with alternative versions and live performances.

In 2005, Morante and Pignatelli dusted off the glorious name for Back To The Goblin. This time they were joined by Agostino Marangolo and the band's longtime "fifth Goblin", Maurizio Guarini. Their trademark dark-hued atmospheres return, with all the usual ingredients: razor-sharp guitars, seizure-inducing drumming, plus the familiar array of keyboards, Hammond, Moog and pipe organs. The murky recesses of "Hitches", the funky syncopations of "Sequential Ideas", the exotic suggestions of "Japanese Air" and the classic-rock feel of "Magic Thriller" attempt to bring their signature architecture back to life, charged with a much harder edge underscored above all by Morante's contributions. Too often, though, the sound remains trapped in overly familiar clichés, frequently retreating into mere craftsmanship.

That same year the band was celebrated with the first official monograph, written by Giovanni Aloisio, and with the launch of their first official website, fittingly titled Back To The Goblin.

After 32 years away from the stage, the old comrades-in-arms — now without Simonetti — returned to touring in 2009, settling into a five-piece: Fabio Pignatelli, Massimo Morante, Maurizio Guarini and Agostino Marangolo, plus new entry Aidan Zammit. And while the theme from "Profondo Rosso" even became a hit mobile-phone ringtone and a new generation of fans discovered their music, Goblin, just like their mentor Argento, rose to become definitive icons of an era and a style now fully recognized in their greatness.

Claudio Simonetti's Goblin

Formed in 2014, Simonetti's new lineup gave Goblin a fresh voice. Now it's time to celebrate, with the anniversary of Profondo Rosso and a new album (The Devil Is Back). In 2022 Simonetti once again changed to a brand-new lineup ("my best lineup ever", Simonetti himself tells us) and marked the 45th anniversary of "Suspiria" with a non-nostalgic prog-rock version of the 70s sound, already road-tested live several times in recent years.

These developments bring us to the new version of "Suspiria", the celebrated track that — after an opening that's a photocopy of the original — evolves into a fast, pounding, expansive second part, less tied to the claustrophobic atmospheres of horror film. With the new, dazzling guitarist Daniele Amador, formerly of progressive metal band Onydia, Simonetti has far more room to vary and modernize his sound, something evident for instance in "Markos", a typically progressive track with guitars bordering on metal that can even recall Dream Theater.

Suspiria Prog Rock Version could have aimed both to revitalize a timeless classic, a milestone of Italian film scores, and to pay tribute to the extraordinary career of a musician capable of crafting immortal melodies. It's likely that, aside from two or three tracks, it achieves the second goal. And after fifty years of a career at this level, that's no small feat.

Contributions by Simone Coacci ("Suspiria")

Goblin — A Historic Band, edited by Massimo Ferrara (with the collaboration of Demetrio Cutrupi). Contributions by Valerio D'Onofrio ("Suspiria Prog Rock Version")

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