IFSOUNDS - Reset

Now, with their fifth album, they decide to attempt a kind of fresh start. The title “Reset” stands as testimony to this attempt, as do the lyrics, centered on the theme of rebirth, of a second chance (“Sono nato due volte”). A genuine novelty is the decision to release the album in two versions, one in English, one in Italian; this review covers the Italian version.

After two more typically progressive albums, “Apeirophobia” (2011) and “Red Apple” (2012), and after a 2013 that – due to the departure of three of its five members – seemed to mark the end of the band, “Reset” marks a turning point driven by the tenacity of the two survivors, keyboardist Claudio Lapenna and guitarist Dario Lastella. The arrival in the band of singer Pierluca De Liberato “Runal”, with his rock-blues background, kicks off the second life of Ifsounds. While the previous albums – particularly “Apeirophobia” with its emblematic twenty-seven-minute suite – were nostalgic hymns to the golden age of progressive rock, here we're faced with a clear shift towards a more classic rock sound, closer to blues and hard rock.

“Reset” thus simplifies the band's sound; no track exceeds six minutes, and to really hear progressive sounds we have to wait for the sixth track, “Scappa Via”, while to leave the classic song format behind we have to reach track nine, the title track, an excellent compromise between prog keyboards and Floydian guitars.

In the rest of the tracks, different souls coexist: the energetic rock of “Sono nato due volte”, which immediately introduces both the theme of rebirth and De Liberato's warm blues voice, the hard-rock riffs of “Io non volevo odiarti”, the folk ballad “Laura”, the Led Zeppelin echoes in “Flashback” and the dissonances of Fripp's “Lark’s Tongues in Aspic” in “Fr9364”. 

“Reset” is indeed a turning-point album in the career of Ifsounds, an honest attempt at simplification, resulting in a sound that's more immediate and accessible than in the past. As is only natural, this will please some and disappoint others – perhaps precisely those who had appreciated the complexities of “Apeirophobia”.