10.000 ANOS DEPOIS ENTRE VÉNUS E MARTE

In the 1970's, Portugal was the wrong land for modernisms and avant-garde feelings, thanks to fifty years of dictatorship through the fascism of Salazar, that brought many problems to many people, (musicians included), through the censorship. After the revolution, Portugal was the true "Neverland" of Progressive Music. When you hear that there is a Portuguese album among Billboard's Top 100 progressive albums, an album made in the 1970's, and that it was a José Cid you can get KO for some seconds. But there's more to come. If you try to guess the artist behind the album, surely José Cid would be the last one you will say. If you are given some clues about the musician/band, you might think about Cid for a very brief moment, but you instantly turn down that option. That's due to the recent musical tendencies of José Cid who unfortunately abandoned the progressive influences, and was almost obliged to continue his career through a pop orientated path, regarded since then as a ballad musician. For prog music appreciators happiness, he experienced a very futuristic attitude in a country where that was uncommon in the first years of true freedom since the 1920's. Cid has also shown some of this even in the dictatorship, when his former group (Quarteto 1111) had an album completely scratched by the "blue pencil", except for one song, for "the good of the nation". The problem was also about what music was really, and Portugal's letargic state in terms of music industry. Orfeu, the label of the album, didn't initially want to publish the album because it wasn't commercial enough! The cover and the insert were too much expensive. So Cid abdicated from the royalties to contribute to "10000 anos." publication. To add another problem, the whole side two of the album was deleted accidentally, therefor needing to be re-recorded.

"10000 Anos Depois Entre Vénus E Marte" is an album where the keyboards are omnipresent from the beginning to the finish, especially with the mellotron having a great role, and the album is a completely masterpiece of its use, and a required album in the collection of any mellotron fan. One song has the title "Mellotron, O Planeta Fantástico", and it's really fantastic, and we can say that the chemical element of that song and planet is the mellotron, after the destruction of the Earth. So, it's a very sweet piece of sugar for the lovers of the mellotron, and that's what leads the album to the status of great progressive work, and to our consideration and billboard's top too. Through the album José Cid is amazingly accompanied by José Nabo, Ramon Gallarza and Mike Sergeant, that contributed significantly to make the album, a great album. Lyrically, the story of leaving and returning to the planet 10000 years later is exposed in a fantastic way through the lyrics, and is very well illustrated in the pictures that are present in the editions of the album with the lyrics in Portuguese and its translation to English. The bonus track that ends the CD edition is the EP "Vida (Sons do Quotidiano)", released a year before the album itself, and that fits well on the album, giving an epic finish to it, as a song that uses many effects that represents the "daily sounds" (Sons do Quotidiano), from the birth of an human being (we hear a doctor speaking), to the death (a car crash). It was a really good idea, as the EP is even more difficult to find than this LP.

In the beginning of the album, we hear a sudden start provided by the mellotron and its famous choir sound. This beginning is the shadow of what will happen in the rest of the song and the album, a wonderful use of this instrument. Then, "O Caos" comes and it's the fastest song of the album. The song has a middle section which is slower and contrasts with the other parts, where Cid sings more melancholic lyrics which refers to the destruction and tells that the dream of Humanity is gone, and their incapacity to solve this cataclysm. Mike Sergeant makes his appearance and plays a good guitar solo. The longest track "Fuga para o Espaço", starts with just piano and the other instruments come later. This song clearly reminds me Pink Floyd: from the guitar solos by Zé Nabo (amazing performance in the whole album) which are made in David Gilmour's style, to the vocal performance by Cid, where his screams remind "The Great Gig in the Sky". The next track shows Cid's keyboards including the mellotron that gave the name to the planet and the song. A good guitar solo in the middle. Recently, Cid has surprised many fans by playing this one live. The title track is greatly instrumental, this time almost only with keyboards. The lyrics tell about the (re)start of civilization. In "A Partir do Zero", they start from the zero as the title says, reborning and reconstruction civilization. The keyboards are the makers of this one. The end comes with "Memos", which is the same thing that is in the end section of "Fuga Para o Espaço". Considering this point and the title (that is close to memória, Portuguese for memory), I interpret this song as when the man and woman remember the painful moments when they had to leave the Earth, ten thousand years ago. This masterpiece ends this way, remembering the past.

This album deserves 5 stars because of this I mentioned. This is a masterpiece of mellotron and keyboards, and so it's also a prog masterpiece, from a prog artist that is gone, and that was invisible here, in his home country on that decade, and only appeared with pop-orientated works. But works like this one stay between the fans forever, to be listened and appreciated and to gives us very good moments.