SoulenginE - THE BAND

Eirk Neuteboom's words:

"The band sent me a promo EP (released in 2008) with two tracks. First Polheim (unmastered version) that sounds dynamic and alternating with elements of ELP (Hammond organ), Genesis (bass pedals and violin-Mellotron eruptions), Mahavishnu Orchestra (excellent interplay in jazz rock style) and Rush (synthesizer drops, bass pedals and exciting interaction between guitar, keyboards and rhythm-section). You can hear that the musicians are experienced with lots of interesting musical ideas, a very pleasant first musical encounter with SoulenginE! The other composition is their single Rain Flower (demo version): it starts with a captivating combination of jazz rock sounding electric piano and guitar and bombastic Hammond organ, followed by a harder-edged guitar solo, halfway the atmosphere turns into mellow with soaring electric guitar (use of volume pedal) and violin-Mellotron eruptions, then a splendid build-up with tasteful work on guitar and keyboards, a funky bass and in the end a fiery electric guitar solo with wah-wah pedal in a compelling climate, this is very dynamic music.
I am looking forward to their debut album, what a very promising new Italian progrock band!"

(Erik Neuteboom - Background Magazine)

The project SoulenginE was born in 2007, when guitarist Ettore Salati and keyboard player Fabio Mancini got in touch with bass player Nando de Luca and drummer Giacomo Pacini. In a first time, they recorded a tune called "Rain Flower" for an italian cd-compilation, and it seemed that the four guys had worked together only for this purpose... but it wasn't!

Ettore and Fabio had played for about 7 years in the band "The Watch", and they shared many important experiences, like the "Vacuum Tour" which brought them to play live all over the world and in international progressive festivals, and recording the albums "Vacuum", "Live Bootleg" and "Primitive". When Ettore left the band in 2007, asked Fabio to work together on four-hands original compositions.

The two guys had so many original songs in their minds that immediately wanted to let a real band been born. The first aim was to merge all the influences they had, which crossed the borders from seventies' progressive rock to jazz, fusion, psychedelia and so on... Giacomo and Nando joined the project, and the four members started a large arrangement job, which took the most of 2008 and 2009.

Nine songs came to life, or we should better call them "tunes", because the music is mostly instrumental, and it features vocals only sometimes.
The first song (called "Polheim") is already included in a cd-compilation by Colossus called "Dante's Purgatorio", which features progressive bands from all over the world, and is printed and distributed by Musea Records.