Untangling the convoluted and fragmented evolution of Italian soundtrack legends Goblin may very well be an exercise in futility. The history up to the point of Roller, their 1976 non-soundtrack album is pretty easy, though: bunch of kids got together and played live a few times as Oliver, changed a few members and got picked up by a label who randomly changed their name to Cherry Five. They recorded an eponymous album of progressive, fusion-ish tunes with a vocalist (we’ll get around to reviewing it this month) before hooking up with Giorgio Gaslini to help score Dario Argento’s Deep Red. Gaslini left the film, and Argento had the band do the composing themselves. To ensure this work didn’t conflict with the about to be released Cherry Five album, they changed their name to Goblin. Make sense? Who knows, but after the classic Deep Red score the band went and created Roller. And here we are.

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