My awards for 2023 included a category of “best debut album”, and the joint winner of that was the wonderful “A New Beginning”, a heartfelt concept album from a very talented Italian musician, teacher, and songwriter, Massimo Pieretti. You can read my review of the debut by clicking on the button below.
Earlier this year, Massimo released a rich live album, Things To Live, and he has been teasing us a wee bit by playing and issuing parts of his sophomore studio album, The Next Dream, which I am glad to report is to be released in full on 26th May.
Once again, we have a veritable host of guest artists appearing, far too many to mention in this space, but the quality of them is a testament to just what a name Massimo has made for himself in our progressive world.
The album is based around the subconscious world, the images and scenes which reach out to us in REM sleep, some nice, others terrifying, and, at least for me, many utterly incomprehensible. There is a bit of a stereotype, which lasts to this day, that Freud essentially taught us that dreams were all down to bonking, whereas, in fact, he taught that a major function of them was the fulfilment of wishes and could provide for an insight into our unconscious desires (hence the sex bit) and conflicts.
First off, Massimo has released a video teaser on YouTube, and we can view that below.
For physical copy, you can go along to https://wall.cdclick-europe.com/projects/massimo-pieretti-the-next-dream-cd
Okay, let’s discuss in some detail what we have.
The album opens with Come Heavy Sleep, which features among its musicians John Hackett on flutes and Rob Townsend on soprano sax. These musicians don’t play for anybody, and this is the esteem in which Pieretti is held. The basis of this introduction is John Dowland’s song of the same name, arranged for the 21st century by Pieretti, and has Maria Chiara Rocchegiani on lead vocals. It serves nicely as an operatic overture to the main course, and the vocals are beautiful, Pieretti’s soundscapes perfect, Roberto Falcinelli providing for a ripping guitar and the final words asking whether the demons wish to steal the protagonist’s soul.
Creatures of the Night Part One was released as a single last year, and the video is embedded below. The song’s lyrics here and on much of the album were co-written with bassist Gianluca del Torto. I would, incidentally, heartily recommend you check out Noage, where lead vocalist Germana & Massimo ply their group heavy rock trade. Germana’s voice is expressive, heartfelt, and she has wholly brought in to her partner’s musical vision. The track introduces us to the world of dreams, Simone Cozzetto providing us with some blistering fretwork. Much of this has a dreamlike quality in its storytelling, but always with a sense of the dramatic, which Noage is adept at putting across. This is a strong track which really grows on the listener. Are the voices and images spirits, looking to steal our soul, or merely a figment of a dark nighttime imagination?
Get in Line has Noage & Marco Ragni sharing the vocal duties, Hackett playing flute, and the staggeringly talented Mark Cook on Warr bass and guitars alongside soundscapes. There are some pretty hard-hitting lyrics on this track, which I will be playing on my Progzilla Radio show this forthcoming Saturday. It is a track of beauty, the opening strings courtesy of Lisa Green & Mauro Cipriani just about melting the coldest of hearts. The interplay between Noage & Ragni is pure theatre, and they put in a massive shift on this, all the while Pieretti providing for an orchestral backdrop which soars. I think this is a wonderful piece of music, and a strong contender for an award on this year’s end of year review, perhaps “operatic delight of the year”? The closing guitar solo by Fabio Lanciotti leads us into the voice-laden denouement. Stunning, a real favourite of 2025 for me.
The Chinese Witch (including Mo Li Hua, a Chinese folk song) is up next, and we have the first appearance of Kate Nord on vocals, with Rocchegiani undertaking the traditional song vocal duties (and I would like to hear more of this talent, who I was unaware of prior to listening here). There is a mystery to this which I love, a tale of the protagonist dreaming that he is, in fact, living in the eponymous witch’s dream, a fantasy within a fantasy. There are some fulsome harmonies on this, and it is, perhaps, the best example here of just how good a job of production Massimo, Simone Cozzetto, and Attilio Virgilio has given us, the closing voices and soundscapes against a pretty piano simply stunning, the traditional voice taking the breath away. Incredible, the closing voices almost a requiem to our innermost hopes and fears.
Side One closes with I Dreamed of Flying, which appeared on the EP and is embedded below. The vocal collaborator here is the American Michael Trew, and a mention for a mellotron spot from Andrea Amici. With the opening voice, and the harmonies between Trew and Amy Breathe, there is a grand cinematic feel to this song, the acoustic guitar rich and complementing the massive soundscapes Pieretti provides us with. Best played loud with one’s eyes closed, imagining you are taking your settee, bed, or similar receptacle through the cosmos on an interstellar journey.
Side two opens with the second part of Creatures of the Night and has Lazland favourites Laura Piazzai (you simply must get Imaginaerium’s Siege) on vocals, and the staggeringly talented Nick Fletcher on lead and rhythm guitars, whose class hits you between the eyes from the word go, and when Laura introduces herself, you are back in the arms of a singer who knows instinctively how to emote and bring a reaction. Lisa Green on violin, is extremely busy, providing for a vital sense of sound, and Billy Allen gives us a stunning masterclass in how to underpin a song on bass guitar.
Alone is interesting lyrically, the thought and fear of being bereft socially especially after fighting for what is right. The vocals are provided here by Lorenzo Cortoni, the frontman of Italian act, Road Syndicate. Cook returns on this track, and the solos by American virtuoso guitarist Peter Matuchniak, redolent of Latimer at his finest, simply make you drop everything to gawp in wonder at the speakers. Different degrees of loneliness, I think this song is a paeon to the indubitable propensity of mankind to rise from the ashes and survive almost anything, our dreams perhaps spurring us on in the face of so much adversity. A wonderful piece of music.
Michael Trew returns on vocal duties alongside Lauren Trew on clarinet, and Green & Cipriani on violin & cello backing the atmospherics Pieretti masterfully creates on The First Time We Met which strikes me as being a celebration of a conscious love as much as anything. A song with extremely strong commercial sensibilities which deserves widespread airplay. Francesco Mattei of Noveria is an extremely special guest on guitar. It should be a hit. Simple as that, really.
There are seven parts to the title track, the longest here just short of eight minutes, and The Chinese Witch makes her return. Dominic Sanderson is a very talented vocalist, and he shares duties here with the returning Kate Nord. In parts, soaring, in parts thoughtful, sometimes operatic, others pastoral, always imprinting on your consciousness, especially the lead guitar solo charging the mid-section along, the Warr Guitar, Chapman Stick, and traditional bass providing Mattias Olsson on his drum kit a perfect foil to underpin everything above it. The Chinese Girl returns to close us down, a wheel of fire, the closing words perfectly delineating that sense of confusion one has when one wakes. Was it, and she, real, or just a figment of our imagination? Where do the boundaries between reality and innermost fears really cease?
There is a bonus track on the CD, an acoustic version of I Dreamed of Flying. I have also embedded below for you a quite gorgeous and moving piano solo Massimo has provided me with, The First Time. A musician at the top of his game.
When you laud an artist for a breakthrough debut album, you always wonder whether the quality and initial momentum can be sustained. Rock music history is littered with acts who have flattered to deceive on first impressions, and disappeared without trace when, for whatever reason, they can’t match that initial love and fall by the wayside.
Not Massimo Pieretti. He has progressed with The Next Dream, in the true sense of the word, and provided us with a very special album, which I cannot recommend highly enough.