THE STORM

With a new bassist Pedro Garcia replacing Jose Torres they attempted to adapt to the new times but there was a clear hesitation regarding the musical direction to take and the result was rather disappointing.

The Hammond is replaced by synths, the early 70's Deep Purple sound is totally gone and it's quite impossible to recognize that this is the same band that recorded that 1974 debut album. The lyrics are now in Spanish, and rather poor by the way.

The style is a rather inconsistent mix of mid 70's prog such as Pink Floyd, commercial pop rock, flamenco-rock (Triana had been very successful in the previous years) and the soft heavy rock made popular at the time by bands like Scorpions or Rainbow.

The opener Este Mundo is far from great but it's decent, you could think of a hard version of Pink Floyd.

La Luz De Tu Voz and Desde El Mar y Las Estrellas are decent ballads but nothing remarkable.

The instrumental Saeta Ensayo, split in two parts by the LP format with Part 1 on side A and Part 2 on side B was probably intended to be the link to prog, it explores some variations on the main keyboard melodic line but it's rather weak.

Lejos De La Civilizacion and El Dia De La Tormenta are simply dispensable pop songs.

This was the last album by a band who should have delivered much more, the talent was there but they fell prey of the weak economics in Spain at the time, the military service break of its members and the fall of prog in the second half of the 70's.

Keyboardist Luis Genil died in 2004 and while the band has reunited for some gigs it does not seem likely that they will be back with good prog music on studio.

Storm became loved for their powerful live performances, they supported Queen in Barcelona in December 1974 and Freddie Mercury had only praises for them and was surprised that they did not have international exposure, he and Roger Taylor went personally to their dressing room to congratulate them and after having seen Diego's drum solo Roger did not dare playing his on that evening's show. Diego was indeed a great drummer and his solos were spectacular, he would leave the drumkit and continue soloing tapping with his feet and drumming on anything he could find with the drumsticks, and Angel's guitar solos were no less of a show, emulating Hendrix, Page & co playing his Strat with his teeth, a drumstick or a glass.

They played proggy hard rock much in the style of Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin or Atomic Rooster, with the interplays between guitar and Hammond and a very powerful drumming being their signature features.

In 1974 they finally released this debut album, recorded basically live at Madrid's Audiofilm studio in a record time of 4 and a half hours. Most lyrics are in English interspersed with a bit of Spanish but clearly the lyrics were not the focus point. The original vinyl is highly priced in the collectors world.

I've Gotta Tell Your Mama and It's All Right are just hardrockers, not bad but not too interesting from a prog perspective. Then we have some hard rocking songs but which add some juice by incorporating some time signature changes or interesting shifts, these include I'm Busy, Woman Mine and I Don't Know. Great songs.

And then we have the three great instrumental tracks which are the real meat for proggers: Un Señor Llamado Fernandez De Cordoba (dedicated to their eccentric manager Jose Luis Fernandez De Cordoba) and Crazy Machine are all about great interplays between guitar and Hammond (Crazy Machine including a 2 min drum solo), and the closer Experiencia Sin Organo (Organ-less Experience) which is pure guitar delight in a Zeppelinesque style.

Fans of the best Deep Purple will love this one. Unfortunately the compulsory military service prevented them from staying alive from 1975 to 1978, and by that time the music scene had changed a lot, they would release a 2nd and last album in 1979 but with a rather different style and little success.

You can watch a 30 min performance on a 1975 spanish TV show here, just add http:// in front of this tu.tv/videos/storm-concierto-en-directo-en-tve-1975