Album review: Fungus Family - La morte del sole (2025)

I first visited Genoa in 2014 for the Riviera Prog Festival, part of the FIM music fair, not knowing what to expect. Over three days I witnessed classic 70’s progressivo italian bands along with a range of newer acts, and I felt a bit like a child in a candy store. Having delighted in the music on offer, I made a mental note to look out for future concerts in the city; travel to and from Gatwick was direct and by chance I’d found a great hotel. I’d fallen in love with Genoa.
A Genovese band called Fungus were third on the bill on the opening day, and my contemporaneous notes record that the band were ‘quite theatrical, largely thanks to an animated front man whose voice was an acquired taste; some of their music was very proggy but there was also quite a lot of heavy rock.’ They had released their second album The Face Of Evil the previous year and I imagine the set list was primarily comprised of that material. It was an intriguing mixture of heavy, blues-based prog with folk and psychedelic tinges, sung in English, but it certainly wasn’t an unreasonable fit for the festival.
I began to attend more gigs in Italy, revisiting Genoa and spreading out, discovering the prog scene in Milan in 2017. The FIM fair had relocated to Milan and Black Widow Records, which I’d begun to frequent on a holiday to Genoa in 2015, had organised a single evening of prog music to run at the event. Along with watching the performances of some excellent bands, I spent some time with members of another Genoa-based group, Panther & C. and was introduced to Fungus, who had just appended ‘Family’ to their name to distinguish themselves from other bands called ‘Fungus’ and as an acknowledgement of the influence of British art-rock/prog act Family. Then in 2018, while waiting for King Crimson to perform at the Lucca Summer Festival, I bumped into Fungus Family keyboard player Claudio Ferreri, and had a quick chat before going to find my seat.
I bought the limited edition The Key Of The Garden on vinyl when it was released in 2019 and saw the band live in September the following year when Covid travel restrictions had been lifted at the Abracadabra Festival in Genoa. The last time I was at one of their performances was in October 2023 when they’d been reduced to a keyboardless quartet (Ferreri told me he’d relocated to Milan when I spoke to him in Lucca) and were playing more experimental, angular and seemingly angry music that the band described as a new start.

Fungus were founded in 2002 by guitarist Alejandro Vernetti and bassist Carlo Barreca with William Bettucchi (drums), Vittoria Mezzano (vocals) and guests completing the line-up for the debut album Careful, recorded in 2004 and released in 2006. The arrival of singer Dorian Ferrari and the replacement of Bettucchi with Stefano Firpo resulted in a promo EP that same year which formed the basis of the official second album, the first of a trilogy, Better Than Jesus in 2010. This marked the first appearance of keyboard player Ferreri on a Fungus record and vocalist Ferrari’s adoption of the name Dorian Deminstrel, possibly to avoid confusion! 2013’s The Face Of Evil saw Firpo replaced by Cajo (no other information is available) and another personnel change was required for the final edition of the trilogy, The Key Of The Garden, following the death in 2015 of Vernetti, credited as ‘Alejandro J Blisset - composer’, who was replaced by Alessio Caorsi.
It was the core quartet Barreca-Ferrari-Cajo-Caorsi line-up I saw in 2023 who recorded La morte del sole, supplemented by an array of guest musicians.

Given a live launch at the La Claque club in Genoa on March 16th, the new album is immediately distinct from its predecessors by virtue of the fact that all the singing is in Italian, something I’d class as a positive step because I like my Italian bands to have Italian lyrics. It’s been suggested that Italian vocals will enable the band to better convey their message to their native audience and as a dedicated English-speaking prog fan, I for one will not be put off by this move and furthermore, no broadminded listener should find it a problem with the musical energy helping to carry the meaning of the songs. Lyrically speaking, the subject matter is filled with existentialist angst and while there were tracks on The Key Of The Garden that covered humankind’s neglect for our planet and the living world, La morte del sole is much darker with something of a nihilistic outlook.
A read through of the song words in the CD booklet confirms the vocal passages are relatively short and unfortunately for non-Italian speakers, translating the words into English doesn’t help decipher the exact song meaning, with every track shrouded in metaphor. The title track which opens the album (Death of the Sun) is a case in point, reflecting the split image making up Blisset’s cover artwork. This song announces that the theatrical delivery of old Fungus Family is still present but also indicates the new direction of the group. It’s guitar dominated, with a short electric piano section only appearing almost half way into the piece, though Agostino Macor’s excellent Mellotron makes an appearance for the final third.
37 nani da giardino (37 Garden Gnomes) is more psychedelic and there’s more Mellotron, which is something of a defining feature of the album as a whole. It’s said that gnomes have an association with nature as guardians of the earth and after asking us to ‘Wait for Utopia’s funeral procession/As the world turns upside down’ the lyrics repeatedly and cynically proclaim ‘We live in the best of worlds’. The gentle piano introduction to Tutto ciò che resta (All That Remains) belies the imminent guitar dominance but still manages to include a psychedelic section and I can’t help the feeling that the influence of Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd is getting an airing. 37 nani da giardino gave us whimsical gnomes, then on Destino stabilito (Set Destiny), a Lucifer Sam-like riff emerges from an opening featuring distorted solo guitar and there’s more threatening Mellotron.
Sei ciò che hai (You Are What You Have) alternates between harsh and gentle and it’s nice to hear a good dose of electric piano courtesy of Fabio Cuomo. This is perhaps the closest the band get to their earlier material, including the bluesy ending, although Il vento divino (Divine Wind) also shows traces of old Fungus Family. It’s nicely structured, beginning slowly with synthesizer and guitar melody before a calm vocal passage and has satisfying development. Cavalcata dell’apocalisse (Riders of the Apocalypse) is a return to the aggressive style with a memorable, short descending rocking riff and where organ is featured heavily. It’s possibly my favourite track on the album – the longest at 6’51 - and resolves with a lengthy calm instrumental section.
Lasciami dormire (Let Me Sleep) alternates frantic guitar riffs and lead guitar with slower psychedelic sections where the vocals follow the two moods. A long guitar solo backed with Mellotron takes up much of the second half of the track which ends with a reprise of the psychedelic section. Gabbia di miele (Honey Cage) is appropriately sweet sounding begins with atmospheric keyboards which remind me of Vangelis’ work with Aphrodite’s Child. It’s the shortest song on the album and the lyrics are cosmic, listing the four natural ‘elements’ and their qualities: Water, Fire, Earth and Air. Describing our planet as an ‘unusual honey cage’, it ends with the profound observation that ‘Man in nature is like a branch that breaks'.

The album grows on you with each listen and thanks to the Italian vocals, I’d rate it more highly than The Key Of The Garden. You can still detect pre-2020’s Fungus Family DNA but the message is now more likely to have a greater reach… whether you understand Italian or not.