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Santana - Spirits Dancing In The Flesh CD (album) cover

SPIRITS DANCING IN THE FLESH

Santana

 

Jazz Rock/Fusion

2.79 | 56 ratings

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ZowieZiggy
Prog Reviewer
2 stars Santana turns now more into gospel / negro spiritual with the opener. The opening "suite" features horrible vocals although the instrumental part is quite good I must say : great rythm (as Santana was used to produce in the early days) and very good guitar work fom the master. Again, this number should have been an all instrumental one.

The mellow and syrupy "Gypsy Queen" is really weak, while the funky "It' s A Jungle Out There" won't increase the quality of this album so far (good guitar breaks, which saves it from being mediocre).

A track as "Soweto" appears here as a "highlight" : a good latin-rock ballad in the first part with harmonious and emotional guitar, while the tempo increases after two minutes featuring good sax. It ends in a sort of jazzy jam which sounds not too bad. "Choose" is another weak funky song. Well, this is not really better than the previous "Freedom" album.

The final instrumental part of "Peace On Earth..." is great, but that's half a track !

"Full Moon" is also not too bad a number. The thenth in the genre with reminiscence of "Samba...". Even if this may seem a bit too much to try and reproduce the anthological number, it's always one of their best songs of the subsequent album. This one is no exception (actually, I will do my "Samba Pa'Ti" compilation to be able to get some great Santana moments again).

"Who's That Lady" is probably the worse track of this album (but it is very difficult to define which one is worse than the other one : there are plenty of choices) !

Next song, appears as an anomaly : a live version of "Jingo" (studio track from their first album, back in ... 1969). Although it features some wierd piano and "vocal" parts, at least it has some rythm. But this tribal version is just average.

The mellow live instrumental "Goodness And Mercy" is not the worse of the album.

I will rate this album bit higher than most of the last Santana albums I have reviewed thanks to some good intrumental numbers (or half-numbers). But this is for die-hard fans of these musical moments. Otherwise, just stay away from this album.

ZowieZiggy | 2/5 |

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