Revenience / COEVO Bannermans, Edinburgh Friday 13th January 2023

First up were COEVO, who might be described as accessible power-prog. It’s quite intricate stuff, but they’ve got a very dynamic rhythm section in Marco Sacchetto and Luca Negro, to really nail it down and build a platform for some neat guitar flourishes from Alessio Gasparin. What really sets this band apart though, other than the quality of the song-writing, are the vocals from Aurelio Cosenza. You notice his Teal-coloured beard first but he’s classically trained and delivers the kind of soulful operatic vocals that only an Italian man can deliver in such fine style.

The set list is a mix of tracks from their current ‘End of Troubled Days’ EP, including the stunning title track and the epic ‘Noble Heart’, and some very promising new songs from the next EP which is due out in a few months. Quality stuff.

The link between the two bands tonight is Luca Negro. He’s perhaps best known as the hirsute bass player from Temperance, so he’s been in Bannerman’s before and he’ll be back in Scotland on the 1st of February when they’re supporting Tarja in a belter of a gig at The Garage, Glasgow. He only gets a few minutes break between sets before he’s back on stage adding his dexterous fingers to the power-metal of Revenience from Bologna.

Revenience open with a nice keyboard intro from Pasquale Barile and then blast through ‘Blown Away by the Wind’ and ‘A-Maze’ from their album ‘Daedalum’. Diminutive singer, Debora Ceneri, is a wee powerhouse and she really shines on the band’s “small surprise”; a cover of Billie Eilish’s Bond theme ‘No Time to Die’ which works really well with a metal upgrade. Drummer, Simone Spolzino is the growler in the band and he starts off ‘Neither Created nor Destroyed’ which is apparently the title track from their next record and is the most impressive song of the entire night. Lacuna Coil is probably a lazy comparison but the contrasting female lead and growls and quality musicianship invoke some similarities, although they’ve got their own style.

Debora gets a well-deserved rest while the band perform ‘Profondo Rosso’, from the classic Italian horror movie by Dario Argento, but she’s back for ‘Not My Choice’ from the album and the epic ‘Shadows and Silence’. It’s guitarist, Fausto De Bellis’ birthday, so we’re lucky he chose to spend it with us on a very short three date tour.

Both bands deserve a lot of credit for backing themselves and bringing their music over here on tour. They had little expectation of drawing a big crowd but a fair number of Edinburgh’s more discerning rock fans were very pleased to hear them and to walk away with some merchandise. Such efforts deserve a reward so it would be good if some more readers would at least check out their music online.

A scheduled gig at Ivory Blacks in Glasgow was a late cancellation, so hopefully we’ll see them again soon.