Dark Ages have a sixth album coming on 6 November. Blind Faith goes out through Andromeda Relix, and the first thing to say about it is what is missing: for the first time in the band's history it is not a concept record.
That structure had imposed a narrative line on everything, and dropping it let each song take its own shape. What holds the record together instead is a subject rather than a plot. Trust, in oneself, in other people, in one's own work and in the possibility of change, which is where the title comes from and which is a thinner thread than a story but a thread all the same.
Road to Insanity is out first, with a video directed by Giovaschi. The album was recorded at Mago Studio by Maurizio Fracchetti, known as Tachy, who has worked with the band since 2010 and whom they describe as the sixth member of a five piece. The cover drawing is by Le Nevralgie Costanti and the booklet was designed by Angela Busato, who also plays the keyboards.
The band formed in Verona in 1982, under another name at first, and their first album came nine years later: Saturnalia, in 1991. Then twenty years of nothing, and then Teumman in two parts in 2011 and 2013, A Closer Look in 2017 and Between Us in 2022. Simone Calciolari has played guitar in it from the first day.