ICONOCLASTA / REMINISCENCIAS

First: This is not a studio album but a boxset that contains the first two albums of that mexican band "Iconoclasta" (1983) and "Reminiscencias" (1985).

Second: The cover and inner art of this 2 CD boxset is really amazing.

Third: Iconoclasta's music it's really wonderful. Totally symphonic, with great inffluences of 70's Genesis, ELP, ethnical and classical, with superb performances of each member of the band, specially Ricardo Moreno (guitars, synthesizers), Ricardo Ortegón (guitar) and Rosa Flora Moreno (piano, synthesizers).

"Iconoclasta" has a lot of great songs: "Cuentos de Arquicia" (Tales from Arquicia) it's a very nice and at the same time complex compostion with a pair of astonishing performances on keyboards; "Estudio VI" is a woderful piece for acoustic guitar; "Fuera de Casa" (Out of Home) it's a singular, melodic and very prog piece full of delicate drops of sadness.

"Reminiscencias" (Memories) is a conceptual album divided in four parts: "La Gestacion de Nuestro Mundo" (The Birth of Our World), "El Hombre sobre la Tierra" (The Human Being on the Earth), "La Era de los Metabolismos Tecnologicos" (The Age of the Technological Metabolisms) and "Reminiscencias de un Mundo sin Futuro" (Memories of a World without Future); at first sight this album could look very pretencious. Wrong! With melodic and prog arrangements, great work on chorus and a constant implulse to epic endings, this album is a fine masterpiece of prog rock.

Both albums were made at the early 80's. That fact gives more value to this albums if you remember what kind of prog music was produced on these years...

4 and a 1/2...

Iconoclasta was maybe if not thefirst band, at least one of the pioneer bands talking about Progressive Rock in Mexico, some 70`s bands had the idea and influences, but theey went much more to psychedelic side, so this musicians (all from mexico City) decided to create a band in 1980, their original idea was always try to make music out of mainstream and conventional things, so this is when a mix of jazz, folk, classic music and rock entry.

And at last until 1983 their debut self - titled album was released ,which is a very comfortable album, with 7 good songs, not the best, but all well done, showing us their particular style, and their jazz folk rock sound (above described), and showing us too that bands like Focus were in their mind, i found a clear influence at least in a couple of songs.

So i think it was a great debut, and i repeat, Iconoclasta is a very representative prog band in Mexico, one of the "Dinosaurs", sadly Progressive Rock in Mexico is not so difussed, anyway they created this first album, which was the preamble o their best.

And here is when "Reminiscencias" appears, it was the year of 1995 when they created this album, but actually it was released until 1986 (because of a big earthquake in 1985). Anyway, this is a riper sound, also in one part of the last song we can enjoy for the first time lyrics and vocals, "Reminiscencias de un Mundo Sin Futuro" is a great epic, the first and best of them, changes, great tunes and passages, i am happy with this album in special,.

I have done the reviews of this two albums, because of that i wont review here song by song etc, but you can see my other reviews, what i will say here, is that i highly recommend this "box set, double album compilation", if you want to start digging this band, this is an excellent choice.

Maybe this later albums are not as good as earlier, so try these first and then if you want try the other ones.

After all, im happy with it (also it was so cheap, that makes me happier) and of course i think this 2CD album deserves at least 4 stars, because it could be a great addition to any prog fan.