Progarchives, the progressive rock ultimate discography
El Reloj - El Reloj II [Aka: Al Borde del Abismo, or Segundo Album] CD (album) cover

EL RELOJ II [AKA: AL BORDE DEL ABISMO, OR SEGUNDO ALBUM]

El Reloj

 

Eclectic Prog

4.06 | 58 ratings

From Progarchives.com, the ultimate progressive rock music website

Sean Trane
Special Collaborator
Prog Folk
5 stars One of South America's better groups, El Reloj had an all too brief recording 70's career and just two albums, their debut being in a much harder rock vein in the Purple line. This one is much proggier and is in my top ten South American records. Just like its predecessor's reissue, the album starts out with bonus tracks (which I always found rather unsettling and non-respectful of the album itself. Fortunately this occurrence is rare enough in prog (I can only think of Germany's Parzival with an even stranger set up where bonus tracks bookend the album tracks.

Nevertheless these bonus tracks are worthy of the album's quality even if they do not sound like they came from the album session, but this is minor and they actually extent the disc length to acceptable duration. And this album is rather unlike a lot of other Argentinean prog album, which have a tendency to sound Italian Symphonic-like prog rock. It is rather more in the line of Bubu's superb sole album, with plenty of power, demented music a bit of a cross between Crimson and ELP, but without Emo's doodlings. The line-up is your standard prog quartet with an added guitarist/violinist, but unfortunately, the violin is not used enough, but the group does not really need it to sound original and unique.

While over half the tracks are sung, the vocals are not overly present and plenty of space is given to the music. If most tracks are rather short (except for an 11-min slightly flawed epic) remaining around the 4-min mark, the album is a very even affair with all tracks being eventful and energetic, if not frantic. In this light, it is rather hard to find one track that is a highlight, so if I must risk myself, it'll be a trio: Tema Triste, Harto Y Confundido and Egolatrio. A real must if you want to check out what Latinos can do in prog, but it is not really representative of their country's output. Nothing wrong with that , on the contrary. Rounded to the upper unit.

Sean Trane | 5/5 |

MEMBERS LOGIN ZONE

As a registered member (register here if not), you can post rating/reviews (& edit later), comments reviews and submit new albums.

You are not logged, please complete authentication before continuing (use forum credentials).

Forum user
Forum password

Share this EL RELOJ review

Social review comments () BETA







Review related links

Copyright Prog Archives, All rights reserved. | Legal Notice | Privacy Policy | Advertise | RSS + syndications

Other sites in the MAC network: JazzMusicArchives.com — jazz music reviews and archives | MetalMusicArchives.com — metal music reviews and archives

Donate monthly and keep PA fast-loading and ad-free forever.