Customer Reviews

Serie De Oro: Grandes Exitos

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This is a compilation containing the two original album releases by Alas, a prog keyboard trio from the late 70's out of Argentina and one of my most fortunate discoveries recently. Featuring a large keyboard arsenal and inventive group dynamics, Alas were characterized by a sound somewhere between the bombastic keyboard approach of ELP and the more stretched-out fusion explorations of early Weather Report.

The first two songs were originally sidelong compositions from their first self titled album and go through a multitude of tempo and thematic passages ranging from tight and sophisticated group performance in prog overdrive to spacey and experimental sections with some great build - ups. As good as this sounds, the last five songs from the bands second original album release 'Pinta Tu Aldea'(1978) are even better, primarily because of the addition of new bassist Pedro Aznar who turns in some electrifying virtuosic performances combined with the already heady performance of keyboardists Gustavo Moretto on everything from acoustic and electric piano, various organs, moog, mellotron, and other synthesizers and keyboards. I suppose I should mention that the percussion is certainly up to these standards also; and their is the unusual but colorful addition of some tasty flute, trumpet and acoustic guitar on several cuts.

The overall performances are exceptional blending tight and sophisticated progressive composition with some joyous yet technically impressive improvisation. This is a mostly instrumental cd with a few light and smoothly flowing vocal sections in Spanish. It is hard to believe a keyboard trio which maintains such a high caliber of excellent material seems to be hardly recognized within the prog fan community. I have to wonder how many more South American gems have yet to be discovered.

At various times throughout this ALAS cd, I am reminded of ELP, Miles Davis (circa "B. Brew"), Return to Forever, and some of the Italian prog bands, especially when these guys sing. Yet the manner in which they combine the various elements of those bands is unique and enjoyable, if a little perplexing at first listen.

You see, they kind of jump around in style, even within the same song. The first two songs (both of which hail from their first album in 1976) are loooong ones - 15:48 and 17:36! And they typify the ELP-Italiano-Miles Davis thing with kind of odd results at first. Initially, it was difficult for me to reconcile the near-silent, free jazz, rhythm-less sections that establish themselves in the middle of those songs. But then I realized the classical symphonic nature of these pieces, moving from scene to scene, and returning nicely to the place from which they started. (The last song on the cd makes good use of this technique as well.) These are mostly instrumental pieces, but some Spanish singing is present, and the wide array of keyboards (and trumpet!) is a real treat for us prog lovers.

The third and fourth songs here are shorter, in the 3-4 minute range. "Aire" was a bonus track on the re-release of the debut album, while "Rincon..." appears to be a previously unreleased track from around that same era. The vocals on these two tracks are a little Yessier (wordless on "Aire"), and the Chris Squire-like bass lines add to that notion. These are both great songs.

The last three songs here come from their 1983 album - too bad they couldn't fit the other 13-minute song from that album on this one. (They did have 11 minutes of cd space free, so even a long excerpt?....) These last few tracks have more of the Chick Corea electric piano sound, some nice touches of fretless bass in places, and even a tango groove here and there that reminds me of Weather Report. There are no vocals on these tracks, and not much left of the ELP style; but the last track (...Mosquito") is really cool with the flute/piano/acoustic guitar interplay. (I do believe that this is the only song on the entire cd with guitar.)

This was my first prog-fusion cd from an Argentinian band, and I must say that I was quite impressed. This is very interesting music - performed, composed and arranged very well. I'm not quite sure why this cd is called "Rock" here at Amazon - I realize it says "Serie de Oro - Rock" on the spine, but I'm pretty sure the official name of this cd is "Grandes Exitos", which literally means "great successes" (greatest hits?). Whatever - seek it out; alas, you do "need" this one.

I value interesting music that is played and recorded well. This cd's rating was based on:
Music quality = 8.0/10; Performance = 8.5/10; Production = 9/10; CD length = 10/10.
Overall score weighted on my proprietary scale = 8.5 ("4 stars")