Semiramis are one of the most remarkable stories in Italian progressive rock — a band of Roman teenagers who, while still in their teens, made a single, dazzlingly intricate album, “Dedicato a Frazz” (1973), and then vanished. Wild, dense and bursting with ideas, it is a cult masterpiece of the genre’s wilder side — and the work of musicians barely old enough to drive.

The short version

Formed in Rome by a group of teenage cousins and friends, Semiramis built their music around the guitar prodigy Michele Zarrillo, who joined at fifteen. Their sole album, “Dedicato a Frazz” (1973), is a turbulent, tightly-packed suite of symphonic prog — folk, hard rock, Baroque and circus all colliding at breakneck speed. A flop on release, it has since become a treasured classic of RPI, all the more astonishing given the youth of the band that made it.

Rome: a band of teenagers

Semiramis began around 1971 in Rome, the work of three fifteen-year-old cousins: keyboardist Maurizio Zarrillo, bassist Marcello Reddavide and drummer Memmo Pulvano. They started out playing covers of Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin and Le Orme, with Maurizio “Macos” Macioce on vocals — until, in 1972, Maurizio’s younger brother Michele Zarrillo, a teenage guitar prodigy from the band I Piccoli Lord, joined, took over lead vocals and quickly became the group’s creative heart, writing their original material. They named themselves after the legendary Babylonian queen Semiramis and played a 24-minute suite at Rome’s Villa Pamphili festival. When Pulvano left, drummer Paolo Faenza came in, bringing second keyboardist Giampiero Artegiani — and the classic five-piece was complete.

Dense, restless, intricate

“Dedicato a Frazz” is a whirlwind. Its songs are short but extraordinarily dense, restless suites of dramatic mini-epics whose themes shift every few seconds — folk arpeggios collapsing into hard-rock riffs, then synth barrages, then theatrical, circus-like interludes. Built on twin keyboards, Michele Zarrillo’s strident fuzz guitar and the vibraphone that became the band’s trademark, it draws on Italian folk, heavy rock, Baroque church music, jazz and classical, all delivered with what one might call youthful abandon. If the singing is young and a little eccentric, and the whole sometimes threatens to fly apart, that wildness is exactly the point — and the playing, from these teenagers, is astonishing. Echoes of Le Orme, Banco and Il Balletto di Bronzo run throughout.

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Dedicato a Frazz

The band’s sole album, “Dedicato a Frazz” (1973), released on the short-lived Trident label, is a concept work centred on Frazz — a dreaming clown confronted by the realities of existence — with each song a surreal episode from his story. The name itself was an acronym of the members’ surnames. Recorded in Rome in September 1973, just before the band came apart, it arrived in a striking gatefold cover, its Dalí-esque artwork the work of the English painter Gordon Faggetter. From the opening “La Bottega del Rigattiere” through the gothic “Uno Zoo di Vetro” to the closing “Clown”, it pours out idea after idea. A commercial flop at the time, it has long since been recognised as a classic, and original copies are now genuinely rare. The band dissolved in 1974, a planned second album never released.

Album by album

A single album — an intricate, teenage-made masterpiece. Tap the title for its guide.

The players and afterwards

Semiramis were Michele Zarrillo, his brother Maurizio Zarrillo, Marcello Reddavide, Paolo Faenza and Giampiero Artegiani — all of them teenagers. After the band split, Michele Zarrillo joined a late line-up of Il Rovescio della Medaglia before embarking, in the 1980s, on a hugely successful career as a melodic pop singer — an extraordinary turn for the composer of so wild a prog record. Giampiero Artegiani became a noted songwriter and producer. The surviving members reunited in the 2010s, but the years that followed brought sorrow: keyboardist Maurizio Zarrillo died in 2017, and Giampiero Artegiani in 2019. Their single album endures as the band’s true monument.

Where to start

There is only one place to start — “Dedicato a Frazz” (1973), Semiramis’s lone album and one of the most thrilling one-shots in all of Italian prog. Dense, wild and endlessly inventive, it rewards repeated listening — you hear something new each time — and for anyone who loves the sharper, heavier, more adventurous side of RPI, it is essential.

Why they still matter

Semiramis matter as proof of what raw, fearless youth could do — a band of teenagers who, with more imagination than caution, made a record so intricate and alive that it still astonishes decades on. “Dedicato a Frazz” failed in its day and might have been forgotten, yet it has become one of the most cherished of all RPI rarities, a reminder that some of the genre’s wildest treasures came from its youngest hands. For anyone exploring the deeper riches of Italian prog, it is unmissable.

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