Unreal City are one of the brightest lights of the modern Italian progressive scene — a young band from Parma who took the sound of vintage 1970s RPI and made it new again. Built on lavish vintage keyboards and the dramatic voice of Emanuele Tarasconi, and launched with the blessing of modern-prog maestro Fabio Zuffanti, their albums are confident, romantic and richly atmospheric.

The short version

Formed around 2011 in Parma, Unreal City revived the classic symphonic RPI tradition with rare confidence and skill. Their first two albums — the acclaimed debut “La Crudeltà di Aprile” (2013) and the ambitious concept work “Il Paese del Tramonto” (2015) — pair Mellotron, Hammond and harpsichord with dark, literary, Italian-language drama. Young, gifted and steeped in the music of the 1970s greats, they quickly became one of the leading names in the new wave of Italian prog.

Parma: a new generation of RPI

Unreal City came together in Parma, taking their name — like the title of their debut — from T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land”. An early EP caught the ear of Fabio Zuffanti, the prolific figurehead of modern Italian prog (of Finisterre, La Maschera di Cera and Hostsonaten), who took on the artistic direction of their first album. At the band’s heart is Emanuele Tarasconi — keyboardist, composer and dramatic lead singer — alongside guitarist Francesca Zanetta, bassist Dario Pessina and drummer Federico Bedostri. Steeped in the vintage RPI tradition, and singing in Italian at Zuffanti’s urging to make the most of their own language, they set out to carry the torch of the 1970s into a new century.

Vintage keyboards, modern fire

Unreal City play a lavish, keyboard-dominated symphonic prog drenched in vintage colour — piano, Hammond organ, Mellotron and harpsichord pouring out of Tarasconi’s banks of instruments — over which his romantic, theatrical voice, recalling Gianni Leone of Il Balletto di Bronzo and Aldo Tagliapietra of Le Orme, carries the drama. Dark, gothic and gloriously bombastic, with heavy guitar from Francesca Zanetta cutting through the symphonic grandeur, theirs is music that wears its 1970s influences — Banco, Il Balletto di Bronzo, Le Orme — with pride, yet sounds fresh, modern and immaculately produced. Few revival bands have caught the spirit of classic RPI so completely.

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La Crudeltà di Aprile and Il Paese del Tramonto

The debut, “La Crudeltà di Aprile” (2013), produced under the artistic direction of Fabio Zuffanti, announced the band in style — a confident, dazzling symphonic-prog record that topped Italian prog charts and ranked among the very best prog albums of its year. Its follow-up, “Il Paese del Tramonto” (2015), is more ambitious still: a seventy-minute concept album telling the story of a revelatory dream across seven long tracks, adding theatrical and jazzier passages and a touch of world music to the band’s dark, gothic palette. On its strength the band toured across Europe and Canada. A third album, “Frammenti Notturni”, followed in 2017, confirming Unreal City as one of the most important names in the new Italian prog.

Album by album

Two albums of vintage-flavoured, keyboard-led modern RPI. Tap any title for its guide.

The players

Unreal City were Emanuele Tarasconi, Francesca Zanetta, Dario Pessina and Federico Bedostri, with drummer Marco Garbin taking over for the third album. The band’s creative force throughout was Tarasconi, who wrote the music and lyrics and gave the group its unmistakable voice. After three albums the members turned to new projects — guitarist Francesca Zanetta, among others, going on to form bands of her own — but the run of records they made together stands as one of the finest of the modern Italian scene.

Where to start

Begin with the debut, “La Crudeltà di Aprile” (2013) — the album that made the band’s name, immediate and thrilling, and the perfect introduction to their vintage-keyboard sound. From there, “Il Paese del Tramonto” (2015) offers their grander, more theatrical concept side. Both are essential for anyone curious about where the RPI tradition has gone in the twenty-first century.

Why they matter

Unreal City matter as proof that the spirit of classic Italian prog is alive and well — a young band who studied the 1970s masters so closely, and played with such confidence and craft, that they earned a place among them. Romantic, dramatic and gorgeously retro yet entirely their own, they showed that vintage RPI could speak to a new generation. For anyone who loves the classic Italian sound and wants to hear it carried forward, they are essential.

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