BEYOND APPEARANCES

Carlos Santana and his band have put out some very excellent albums in their long history. This is not one of them. Beyond Appearances may be my least favorite album by Santana. This is a pure pop rock album in the style of Hall and Oates and Toto. Yeck. Especially heinous are BROTHERHOOD, WRITTEN IN THE SAND, and BREAKING OUT. Only the last song, an instrumental, TOUCHDOWN RaIDERS, has a redeeming quality. Barely. But not enough to come close to save this AOR disaster. I know many proggy artists had to lower their musical standards during the 80's to make money, Genesis, Yes, to name a couple, but this is even worse. 1 star only. Skip it. Listen to Abraxas or Caravanserai instead.