CRIATURAS DA NOITE

One of the most important albums in Brazil´s prog music. O Terço was, up till then, considered a good rock band by critics and public, but not outstanding. With Criaturas da Noite everything changed. Gone were the primitive recordings and the basic rock format. Now the band has a permanent keyboards player (Flávio Venturini) and a new bassist (Sérgio Magrão). With that line up they´d record their best albums ever and would produce some of the best prog rock songs of the 70´s brazilian scene.

Criaturas da Noite showed the many faces of this talented outfit: straight rock songs (Hey Amigo, Volte na Próxima Semana), Folk rock (Queimada, Jogo Das Pedras), symphonic prog (1974, Pano De Fundo, the title track) and even an interesting instrumetal tune (Ponto Final). The musicians were very talented and skilled (everybody in the band wrote songs and all the members sang lead and harmony vocals). With no fillers and done with passion and skill, the album was, deservely, a massive hit at the time. Even the production was superb for a third world country at that period.

Introducing some new elements like the brazilian viola (a 10 string acoustic guitar, not the classical instrument) to their sound, it gave a brazilian country feel on some songs, something quite unusual until then. That feature would be further explored in their next album, Casa Encantada, but that´s another story. For the progheads, this is the album to look for if you´re interested in the evolution of Brazilian prog scene in the 70´s.

A classic, a masterpiece. At least for us, in Brazil. You should listen and judge for yourself. For its beauty, novelty and importance, 5 stars, no less.