ATMOSPHERA

Well, usually i am not very enthusiastic about 90's prog, specially brazillian 90's prog, because it usually sucks due to a series of factors, such as bad production, mixing, horrible front cover, etc. Those were all because prog was (and kind of still is) pretty much a bad word in the music industry, and that's why those bands got so mistreated by the labels. Fortunately, however, Atmosphera got themselves a very good independent label (that unfortunately closed its doors), called PROGRESSIVE to record their album. The technical problems, so common in other classical albums such as Recordando o Vale das Maçãs and Snegs, are inexistent here, what is a great advantage.

Armosphera's Fogo e Ar is also the first sign i had that progressive rock was not exactly dead. But, since the band only released one album, that, sadly, doesn't meant much after all. The catalog in their booklet was also promising, but when i got old enough to order those things by myself their label was closed already.

Their music is very good. They make a very good mixture of classic symphonic prog, mainly Yes, along with an enormous dosage of Pink Floyd (the most influent band in their music, in my view), brazilian music, specially música nordestina and some jazzy and latin music bits. Some may think that the flutes here are due to the influence of some prog band, but they actually are here because of the brazilian music. The only problem they have, music wise, is with the singing department. Their singer seems to me a bit hesitant in some parts, and that definitely is negative. However, their music is mostly instrumental and the singing hesitation appears only is some parts of some songs.

Lyric wise, they have some kind of a double edge sword here. Though their music seems to be destined to exportation, all lyrics are in portuguese, what is very bad because Brazil holds almost 90% of all portuguese speakers in the world. However, singing in portuguese they were able to put out their best lyrics and their best singing, since you are a better lyricist in your own mother-tongue and you don't have problems like pronunciation and concordance, to say only the most frequent ones. So,in one hand, the vocals are very good for the ones that can understand, but for those who can't they are just meaningless words, what is too bad.

The highlights are: De Tarde, Todos os Seres, Caminhos Paralelos, Fogo e Ar, Flor do Deserto, Chamada and Suite Drácula. You can see that the album is very constant, very balanced. Every song is very good. There is one problems, though: there is no awesome song. I mean, all songs here are good, but they don't stand out enough, for some reason.

Grade and Final Thoughts

I really think that this album shows a band that could deliver a true masterpiece. I mean it. This album is great, but it still a bit raw / rough. With some work they could deliver a killer album, that is for sure. The problem is that they only released this album, so I'll need to be happy with what i got. Fortunately, this albums rocks. Great music and great lyrics all over the place.

So, for a great album, a great grade: 4 stars.

The first three tracks are all very accessible, with lovely tunes sometimes bordering on hypnotic. While they are all great, "A Todos os Seres" is worth highlighting as a nearly 6 minute lush piece that ends with a brief minute of vocals, and they have all the more impact as a result.

Then the album shifts gear, with the next 3 tracks being much more fusion oriented, featuring lengthy more frenetic lead guitar parts and even some latin sounding acoustic guitar in the title cut. It is a marked shift from the beginnings of the disk. While this more free form material is interesting and has some potential to grow on the listener, I find there is just too much of it. One or two cuts distributed among the tracks might have produced a better effect, but the album just goes off the rails a bit here, and it's hard to figure out what Atmosphera's goal was in releasing 2 "albums" on one CD.

Then it's back to the more structured compositions for "Chamada" and "Cristal", the latter possessing perhaps the most beautiful melody of all, and well communicated by vocalist Cale Luis. In its later stages the Luis engages in wordless voiceplay as the band members rally around him to a sensuous climax. The longest piece is "Suite Dracula" which re-introduces the more meandering spirit again. The main theme reminds me of some other band and when I remember I will edit this review. The sudden shifts do not fit with the approach of the more traditionally symphonic pieces, and the tunes are more esoteric. Nonetheless this is probably the highlight of the fusion oriented axis of Atmosphera.

Everything is at least good here, with the symphonic parts being great, worth 4.5 stars, and the jazzier parts being worth 3 stars. The resulting schism means that I have to truncate rather than round the average. Still, with the program function available, you can choose which Atmosphera you would like to breathe on a given night.