ONDE, QUANDO, COMO, PORQUÊ, CANTAMOS PESSOAS VIVAS

So along our path in Progressive Rock, there are these hidden gems that no matter how hard you try to uncover, you just can't. Some had a very limited pressing, some were regarded as rubbish back in the day, others were simply forgotten. Thankfully, ever since the new century started, people started looking back, as to see just how much they had lost on the way. Well, this was one of those things: a hidden album, obscure, unknown to the masses, known to the elite of the elites, something so rare that it was thought that it had been lost forever, along with the sands of time. But now it's back, and its kicking ass to pratically anything prog ever released in Portugal and in Europe, I dare say.

32 years after its release, here it is ladies and gentlemen: Onde/Quando/Como/Porquê/Cantamos Pessoas Vivas. Two years before 10 000 Anos, supposedly José Cid's greatest masterpiece, back when he was in Quarteto 1111, his brain clicked, and instead of a lightbulb appearing on top of his head, like it happens to most of us, this LP appeared. It was the dawn of a new regime in Portugal, and José Cid created its wake-up call in the cultural field. From mesmerizing lyrics, alluring to the beggining and ending of things, to keyboards like no other, a guitar that screams of agony, because the player is too damn good in this album, a drum that tells the band what to do and tells the listener what to expect (and by this I don't mean that it's predictable, I'm just trying to say that it creates a fantastic ambience) and, finally, to a bass that will make your house shake in respect, this CD has it all.

One song, that's all there's to it, just one, fantastic, long piece of progressive rock. But that's all it needed. This LP is, quite basically, an exact definition of what a progressive album should be like. Sure, it didn't bring a single new thing to the genre (besides unmatcheable 'Tron usage), but it used every single thing that defines the genre in such a fashion that you'll be forced to wonder: How can anyone NOT love this LP?.

By the time you reach the last second of this album, you'll realize the same thing I did: this album is a true world-wide masterpice that was hidden for too long, much to everyone's dismay.

Regarding the (first ever!) remaster: as you can probably imagine, this album was abandoned for so long that, when they went to pick up the master tapes, they were completely useless. So, instead of mastering from the original tapes, they did it from a LP. You won't hear a single click, which is nice, and you can hear a lot of background sounds, like the band members signalling each other with claps and whatnot, but the sound is plagued with bass and medium sounds. It's like the remastering engineers completely forgot about the treble sounds! As you can imagine, the 'Trons suffer quite a lot from this, but you can still hear them well enough to distinguish every sound they make. Even so, it's not like you have a choice here: you either buy the band-new CD, or you won't be able to listen to it, period.