GOBLIN - SUSPIRIA - 1977

Symphonic band from Italy who adapted their music to the movie industry, mainly horror movies from the 70's. The outstanding keyboard work performed by Claudio Simonetti is a trademark of GOBLIN. Most of their stuff is really heavy and moody, with a Floydian progressive feel, and generally pretty good.

Beginning with their first "Profundo Rosso" GOBLIN were obviously better suited to soundtrack music than as a studio offering and the majority of their work was in this vein. Their excellent second "Roller" is a very nice album of traditional symphonic progressive rock from the Italian group. Newcomers to the group will want to investigate their heralded soundtrack albums first, particularly "Profondo Rosso" and "Suspiria". The "essential" GOBLIN works. Highly recommended for fans of soundtrack music.


I think most people who listen to progressive rock are familiar with the Italian band GOBLIN. If you're not, the band started off in the early 70s as the band CHERRY FIVE (reviewed above). They changed their band name, started work on another progressive rock album, but suddenly changed careers after receiving a call from a movie director to write the soundtrack to a horror movie entitled "Profundo Rosso". That movie turned out to become a hit in Italy, and the soundtrack a best-seller. "Suspiria" is a soundtrack to another Italian horror movie, but it's also considered GOBLIN's scariest and most experimental work to date. Well, as far as "scary" goes by today's standards (X-files influenced soundtracks) the music is typical of the mid-70s. Yet, the music never falls into the "cheesy" HALLOWEN music category. The tracks tend to mix dissonant notes, evil whispering voices, percussion crashes, and even a few funky sections. The tracks are also quite detailed (which is suprising today, since modern soundtrack music isn't supposed to stand out, and work well even without the visuals. Overall, "Suspiria" is a stronger album than "Roller". Word has it, this might be the strongest GOBLIN soundtrack out there.
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