Mary Newsletter was formed in the spring of 1992. Their music is basically progressive rock and blues, with strong influences from the seventies. Inspired by many different artists such as Genesis, Jimi Hendrix, Jethro Tull, King Crimson, Nektar, Pink Floyd, Soft Machine, Van der Graaf Generator and Yes. They say they are playing dadaist-rock! You can also hear influences from Folk, Jazz, Psychedelic and classical music, and that gives Mary Newsletter a unique style, but instead makes them rather hard to get used to.

"Nuove Lettere" is their first self-produced demo-CD. Half of the lyrics are in Italian and half in English. The sound on the CD is very dated with a flat and rough sound, but actually that is only good, because you get the impression of actually listening to a band from the late 60's or early 70's. The music got an improvised feeling overall, with many rhythm and tempo changes.

A very nice thing about this album is the use of violin and flute. There is also some excellent guitar and bass playing too, even though the guitar and bass get to much space on the album and the keyboards is sometimes disappearing in the mixing. When you get used to the singer he fits in very well with the music.

The best track is "Introduzione", "Mary", "Thanks Daddy!" and "Thoughts" (a 13 minutes long masterpiece).

This is not a perfect debut; still I think it's one of the five best albums from 1996. Mary Newsletter is surely a promising band with very good musicians. I hope I get the chance to hear their new release "Distratto dal sole", because this is an interesting band. Recommended.