SERRANÍO

Amazing music, this release from Fragil focuses their personal sort of sounds in a cd that gives us a nostalgic and intense evironment, this appears like a colorless picture and at the same time is rich in emotions "aquella nina" sounds like a typical great pop song at the beggining, but, after reading the lyrics .. you say : wow it just happened to me .. music and lyrics are wonderful! it has a nice change and a surprising end "la del brazo" is another highlight, simple, contundent, ... "... everybody ask me, i can`t understand it, why are they looking for the other one life, time has gone, they couldn`t understand that respecting the other one is something you can never forget ... " "huarmi" is a long beautiful instrumental with a peruvian touch (quena. zampona) starts with a warm soft flute and becomes faster until it explodes in exotic sounds and a strong segment of pure rock "animales" is the first song (after "el abuelo" .. strange atypical intro) and tell us about the social human behaviour, again in a simple contundent way, the music is crude, just the basic and has a powerful guitar riff, rock baby "pilon" is so original and it`s dedicated to a dog .. "cuanto hay" .. hummm this song is almost dark, a repetitive chorus like a hammer, evolutive and maybe pesimist about people, music goes from grey to black with a good distribution of white windows in the way, i think it`s one of the best "serranio" ..what can i say, this is like a smart child in the old man`s room, is pure, vivid and has a great inocent and truly point of view of big cities, the power of the basic mixed up with shiny fast music All of this release has an excellent execution of instruments, (keyboards, flute and guitars are really fine) the production is bad, however i think this is irrelevant because of music, definitely this cd is a must This is not the best of Fragil, this peruvian band has a surprising material full of gifts for the progressive lovers, find it!

It's great to see a Peruvian Band with a five stars average, but in the case of this album is overrated; "Serranio" is a good release but by no way can be compared with Fragil's masterpiece Avenida Larco.

In first place Avenida Larco is a symphonic album recorded with songs from the late 70's with an evident Genesis influence (among others), but absolutely innovative and well developed for a band that up to that point had survived playing excellent cover versions from the Progressive Rock icons.

Serranio is a more eclectic release from the late 80's early 90's, oriented towards Rock, Pop and Neo Prog with a clear black and native indian folk influence, that gives a very special and unique touch but makes it less interesting for the proghead who normally wants something more complex.

The album starts with the mysterious El Abuelo (The Grandfather) that reminds me because of the low toned voice to a famous black Peruvian musician, interesting lyrics and vocals but weak in the melody, strange way to start an album.

]Animales (Animals but in this case with an offensive connotation], a good Neo Prog track with some pop influence, but Andrés Dulude's voice gives the perfect sound, enhanced with the excellent drums by Jorge Durand.

La del Brazo (The girl of the Arm -Free translation-) starts almost as comedy relief song, but develops in a more serious track, at the end is important to notice the keyboards by Octavio Castillo and the bass by Cesar Bustamante.

Aquella Niña (That Small Girl) is an outstanding ballad marked by a very powerful piano and drums, ideal for the voice of Andrés Dulude a very good track followed by the weaker Cuanto Hay (How Much for Me?) a pessimistic song that doesn't make the point at all, starts very strong but becomes repetitive, not even the good keyboards save the song mostly because it doesn't have feet or head.

Como un Loco (Like a Mad Man) a blues oriented track with an excellent guitar work by Luis Valderrama that progressively acquires a very pleasant psychedelic mood in the style of Grand Funk, simple but effective track.

Pilón (Spanish translation for the Popeye character Wimpy) Well, what can you expect from a song dedicated to Andrés Dulude's dog Wimpy? The lyrics are not too interesting, and the music goes with the words, they don't pretend too much, except to have fun and that's OK with me, some great guitar riffs though. Followed by Inquietudes (Restlessness) an average track that IMO is only a filler

It's now the turn for the best track of the album, Huarmi, which means wife in a Mountain dialect from the high Andes called Aymara, extremely beautiful flute, the music is completely atmospheric and the drums create the effect of an echo that comes from some distant and cold mountain, continues with a well known folkloric passage played with quena (Peruvian pentaphonic flute) that suddenly changes in one of the best symphonic passages of the album a complete progressive track that has absolutely everything.

Serranio ends with the self titled track that has no precise English translation, a song that slowly has became a new classic by Frágil, very clearly oriented towards Neo Prog, with a Banks like keyboard and sudden changes, a good way to close this album.

Being Peruvian I wish I could give Serranio at least four stars, but if compared with Avenida Larco or Sorpresa del Tiempo, it's clear that is not as strong.

Three solid stars that could maybe reach 3.5 if this was possible in Prog Archives.

I saw Fragil perform last nite for the 25th anniversary of "Avenida Larco"... It was actually Fragil ft. Marcello Motta, a young local guitarist who kicks ass... The show kicked ass... and part of its success was the setlist they chose... which included 5 rockers from this album that really kicked ass...

The tracks on this album range from a very wide variety of moods... the rocker tunes "Cuanto hay" and "animales" or "La del brazo".. powerful and consistent pieces full of social criticism to materialist, indecent and inmoral people.. there is also a beautiful ballad called "Aquella Niña" which's highlight is IMO it's emotive and excellent vocal work. Pilon and El Abuelo are good tracks but the weakest of the album IMO...

Now, my favorite track, and the closer of the album and the one that gives the name to it: "Serranio"... It talks about a phenomenum very common in my country: Inmigration from the outskirts of the land to the big city, the capital... Well... this very proggressive track incorporates elements from prog icons of the 70's in the matter of storytelling and some odd measures and instrumental passages.. this track is probably my favorite by this band and seeing them perform it yesterday was awesome...

At least for this last track, you guys should really give this a try!

This album gets 3.5 -> 3 IMO... definitely worth several spins! Give it a try!