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Chac Mool - Sueños de Metal CD (album) cover

SUEÑOS DE METAL

Chac Mool

 

Prog Folk

3.28 | 21 ratings

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Guillermo
Prog Reviewer
4 stars "Nadie es Profeta en su Tierra" ("Nobody is Prophet in their Own Land"), as an old Mexican saying says. That means that (as I understand it): "sometimes the most severe criticism of your work comes from the people of your own country".

I have to say that that I never have listened (until now) to a full album by this Mexican Progressive Rock band. I only listened to several songs from their albums, and I learned about their history because a Cultural TV channel in my city broadcasted a very good documentary done about them some years ago. I also in the early eighties knew about them thanks to some articles written about them in some Mexican Rock magazines and I saw their albums in the record shops. But that`s all. In 1980- 1981, as a teenager, I wanted to attend one of their concerts in a venue called "La Carpa Geodésica" in my city (which I don`t know if still exists), but at that time Rock music in Mexico, particularly Rock concerts, were a bit like "out of the law", and having attended at least two Rock concerts in my city by that time, where there were riots (not very serious, but somewhat violent, but fortunately nothing happened to my friends and me) I was a bit "scared" to attend Rock concerts in my city again, with or without justification in the particular case of Chac Mool. Fortunately, by the late eighties the situation changed and Rock music here became more or less "approved by the law" and one could attend Rock concerts with more confidence about security. I`m going to write about each song in this album:

"Paranoia": more close to Pop rock music with lyrics which in some parts sound to me as a bit funny.

"Kandahar": a very Progressive Rock song with very good arrangements, very good keyboards atmospheres and a very good flute solo. This is maybe the best song in this album. In general, all the members of the band play very well in this song.

"Brillo de Luna": with good musical atmospheres in general. It has some "Pre-Hispanic" musical influences, but still with some influence by bands like the seventies version of King Crimson and a bit of Jethro Tull in the style of the flute playing.

"Qué Buena Razón": with some Folk-Rock influences and very good arrangements, but again the Jethro Tull musical influence is very clear in some parts.

"Libertad": more oriented to Pop Rock again, but still Progressive. It has a bit of influence from Premiata Forneria Marconi.

"Sombras de la Noche": a good Progressive Rock song with good atmospheres at the start of the song. It has very good arrangements. It is one of the best songs from this album. It includes some mandolin playing, and a guitar solo (the only song on which the guitar has a prominent place doing a solo).

Well. In conclusion I have to say that this band was a very good Progressive Rock band. But there were some "problems": the lack of a good lead singer (the vocals are in tune but are thin and it is not very easy to understand the lyrics even if they are written in the Spanish language; maybe the sound mixing of the vocals in particular is not very good). The late guitarist Jorge Reyes was a better flute player and composer than guitarist and singer (a thing that even some people interviewed in that documentary that I mentioned above recognized). But I have to say that despite all these problems, this album is still very good, and this band really deserves the respect that their Mexican fans give to them.

Guillermo | 4/5 |

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