Artist: Devil Doll
Label: Self-released
Released: 1989
In the late eighties, an Italian guy decided to blend his love of horror movies, baroque and progressive music into a strange new concoction called Devil Doll. Right after the release of the first album (even during the recording), rumors started circulating about the man who called himself Mr. Doctor. The session musicians said they had never actually seen him and had only been in contact with the producer, Jurij Toni. Jurij Toni himself never commented on the identity of Devil Doll’s mastermind. So at first the talk was that Mr. Doctor was Jurij Toni himself. Later it was said to be Mauro Moroni, owner of the Italian label Mellow Records and a record collector (he owns tens of thousands of CDs and LPs), but Moroni denied the rumors himself. He did say he knows Mr. Doctor and that they’re good friends. Later still, when some unofficial photos of the doctor himself showed up in the media, a few fanatics began claiming they’d seen that face in some horror films from the early twentieth century. And so a theory grew that he’s some kind of vampire. I don’t know whether it was on purpose or not, but a real cult has sprung up around this man, and some naive souls happily keep pondering who or what Mr. Doctor really is. It doesn’t help when Mauro Moroni says he’s a perfectly normal guy who likes progressive music, and it doesn’t help to know that Mr. Doctor actually owns one of Italy’s biggest children’s clothing stores and is about as supernatural as a sack of potatoes. People simply love building legends, and the oppressive, creepy music of Devil Doll fits the bill perfectly.
For his first record, though, Mr. Doctor didn’t pick a theme from some horror flick. Instead he built the story around the cult TV series The Prisoner (The Girl Who Was Death is the title of one of its episodes), where a former secret agent who wanted to retire gets dumped on an island, kept under constant surveillance, with practically no chance of escape. Of course the story is packed with madness and absurdity, and it’s not just about simple escape attempts. It’s full of bizarre twists and characters that at times make the series pretty psychedelic and surreal. The show’s lead actor, Patrick McGoohan, even gets a mention in the thank-yous in the booklet, so the man behind Devil Doll must have been seriously smitten with The Prisoner.
Apparently the Italian “weirdo” took a liking to Slovenia, because he decided to record his first album (and the ones that followed) at the Tivoli studio in Ljubljana. For his exploits, the good doctor gathered the cream of the Italian and Slovenian music scenes. Among the Slovenes are Davor Klarič and Bor Zuljan of Šank Rockovca, and Jani Hace, now with Siddharta. Besides rock musicians, he also rounded up plenty of classical performers. Naturally, the playing on the album is at an enviable level.
The album shows this band’s intentions right from the start. The intro is actually completely classical, but only later, once Mr. Doctor starts singing and a few hard rock parts kick in, do you see it’s going to be a strange combination of classical, avant-garde, progressive rock and hard rock. The singer isn’t the man of a thousand voices for nothing: he sounds completely different in nearly every other section. Sometimes he’s a little girl, sometimes a demon, sometimes a cabaret singer. I totally understand that his style can get on some people’s nerves. Personally I find it interesting, but once you’ve heard several Devil Doll albums, the tricks start repeating and it’s not as fun anymore. His voice is complemented excellently by the opera singer Paolo Zizich and by the choir under the baton of Marjan Bunič. After roughly forty minutes of intense music, full of constant twists and shifts in tempo and style, comes a long pause. These pauses are practically a Devil Doll trademark, since they used them on several more albums. After more than twenty minutes of silence, the album closes with a new arrangement of the theme from The Prisoner. It’s a rocked-up version that’s much more energetic than the original.
I’m not exactly sure why metal fans get so excited about this band. Sure, there are a few more hard rock moments, but there’s no trace of metal whatsoever. For the most part it’s a mix of symphonic rock (at times almost classical music) with an avant-garde execution. Maybe Devil Doll are popular with metalheads because of their almost cliché horror lyrics about all sorts of traumas, phobias, sick ideas and basically everything dark. Those are supposed to be mostly metal clichés, but Mr. Doctor was obviously a fan of old horror movies and psychological thrillers too, because his lyrics are even darker than the metal ones, at times almost sick. As if his goal was to shock people at all costs.
Every Devil Doll album has at least a couple of outstanding moments, but I think that if the first album you hear from this band doesn’t completely captivate you, there’s no point in digging any deeper into their music. All the albums work more or less on the same principle. There are some quiet parts with piano and the doctor’s otherworldly vocals, some almost classical, Bach-like organ interludes, here and there some hard rock bits where the guitar gets more room, and at times the albums sound almost classical, with typical classical instruments (violin, trombone, …) and operatic vocals. Really, every album is a combination of the things I’ve just listed. You may love it to bits and want every album by this oddball, Mr. Doctor. Personally I find Devil Doll interesting enough that I explored the whole discography. Their music is experimental, original and innovative enough to be called progressive in the true sense of the word. But that freshness fades pretty quickly once you hear the second, third, fourth album. Only the first one was truly original; after that the good doctor mostly just repeated himself. Still, this first album is among those genuine progressive moments that are worth hearing.
Lineup
Mr. Doctor – man of a thousand voices, organ
Edoardo Beato – piano
Albert Dorigo – guitar
Sasha Olenjuk – first violin
Katia Giubbilei – second violin
Bor Zuljan – guitar
Davor Klarič – keyboards
Jani Hace – bass
Lučko Kodermac – drums
guests:
Paolo Zizich – backing vocals
Mojca Slobko – harp
The Devil Chorus – conductor Marjan Bunič
Production
Jurij Toni
Track list
1. The Girl who was….Death (38:48 + 26:20 of silence + 1:56)
Album length: 66:06
