CRIATURAS DA NOITE

The third album by O Terço lures the listener in with some gentle, sunny straight-ahead folky rock numbers before adding increasingly intense progressive rock and psychedelic influences, building up to the expansive concluding track 1974. The band had undergone a mild transformation from their previous album, with only Sergio Hinds sticking around from the group's earlier lineups, but they wisely seem to have decided to spend the intervening years letting the new lineup gel and developing a new sound rather than cranking out a new release before they were ready, and Criaturas da Noite benefits greatly from the care taken in its recording. Interesting stuff, though to be honest I could have done without the folk rock numbers that lead things off - a Latin take on Crosby, Stills and Nash, whilst an intriguing idea, doesn't really play to the strengths of this lineup.