ENDLESS SIGNS

"Endless Signs" is slightly different than their four previous releases. I think that CAST sometimes sounds like their British colleagues PENDRAGON. From the first album and onward, I think that they have taken a step forward towards a more British sound for every record. The guitarist Francisco Hernándes and keyboard player Alfonso Vidales are playing a main role in CAST, and they are really coming to their rights on this their fifth album. Best tracks: "Hidden Poems", "Spirit of Man" and the mighty instrumental finale "Nostrabamos".

This period of Cast's career is both prolific and highly creative. Of course, they started to play as a band in 1979 and they had a lot material available to put albums together. herefore, no less than six albums were released in as little as two years. Not always great (like their debut album " Landing in a Serious Mind") but generally good.

"Endless Signs" belongs to theIr good ones. It is more ELP oriented than others probably, which does not really displease me. The pompous and bombastic side with "Hidden Poems" and the delicate and almost classical one with "Spirit Of Man".

The piece of resistance being the title track and epic song "Endless Signs". Most of the aspect of Cast are present : Cast's high technicity, pleasant vocals from Dino (which I globally like BTW), superb keys of course, long and bombastic instrumental passages (at times heavy), light (but short) early-Genesis sounds. It lacks maybe in cohesion and grandeur but overall it is a good song.

"Allow Me" is a nice piece of music, melodic and poignant as far as the vocals are concerned. They remind me somewhat Peter Nicolls's ones (IQ). The closing number "Nostrabamos" will also bring us back to the ELP tradition. Strong keyboards again (but this is a standard for "Cast" since its leader Alfonso Vidales is truely a great player) and bombastic music. A great finale.

It sounds as "Cast" has broken with some of their influences with this album (PFM, Tull and the early Genesis and this album is more concentrated on ELP. It is a pleasant album in these ELP-less years.

Three stars.

This is a solid album by Mexican prog band: CAST. It's too bad that this band, especially this album, has received little attention by prog lovers. The music offered by Cast in "Endless Signs" is actually excellent in music composition and performance. The only problem with this album is in its production. I don't know why I have never found any album of Cast which has excellent production especially in the sonic quality of the CD. This has impacted into listening pleasure of this "supposedly" a wonderful album which has been capped by the limit of the production quality. Composition-wise I can see there is relatively high music density performed by the band. The combined work of keyboard by Vidales and smooth howling guitar by Hernandes is actually stunning especially when it's combined with powerful drum work. The music is actually a combination of Genesis, Camel and a bit of ELP. In most cases, the keyboard work is much more dynamic than Tony Banks in Genesis. The melodies of each track are also good and they all blend nicely with the music. I can imagine if this album is recorded with the same sonic quality of Genesis "Selling England By The Pound" it will definitely create clearer sounds reproduction. I have no problem with all songs in this album, in fact, I like them all because the music is quite complex and packed. This album is another favorite of mine in addition to "Angels and Demons" album. Keep on proggin' ..!

Peace on earth and mercy mild - GW

It is incredible difficult to find albums from this band from Mexico. Which is a pity because what I have heard so far has been rather good. I loved their Orginallis album

I have been advised that Cast has chopped around their style quite a lot. Although they have always stayed close or within the Symphonic Prog genre. This album though is a bit of a detour and I would argue; a detour into Neo Prog. The sound is pretty much in the vein of IQ and Pendragon. The vocals is Pendragon out and out. There are also some strong Genesis elements (not surprising !) in their sound and some faint Flower Kings and ELP elements. If you love Pendragon and IQ; this album should be purchased (if you can find it) just because of the lush sound.

The quality of this album is not that impressive though. The problem is that the songs are simply not good enough. There are three really good songs on this album though. The Genesis dominated Spirit of Man and the title track. Those two songs are really epic and takes us through various landscapes. The final song Nostrabamos is like ELP goes Neo- Prog on a boat in France. Those three songs are great. The rest of this album is OK.

It is a pity that this album is so difficult to get hold of because it is rather good. I really like this band.

3 stars

The show at the pre-Progfest Festival at Barnsdall Theater made only good to Cast, not only their performance was satisfactory, but they also managed to hit big time sells on the running ''Four aces'' album and their next work ''Endless signs''.Self-produced by the band, this marked the fifth full-length album by Cast in a 2-year period!

I am dissapointed to say that the bulk of recording sessions and written tracks did not end up to a really strong album this time.They haven't moved an inch from a refined symphonic-oriented and occasionally melodic Symphonic Rock, I think that the front covers with the main figure of jester just say it all regarding the direction of the group, but the music sounds not that inspiring as on the last few albums.Nevertheless, it would be a statistical error to release so many albums in a limited time with all of the being equally good.The tracks are pretty long with plenty of different segments and mood changes, influenced by GENESIS, MARILLION and the likes, featuring lots of guitar and keyboard fests, but I am afraid that the material is rather forgettable, especially the two longer pieces, the title-track and ''Spirit of man'', seem like the weakest links on this CD.Production was never Cast's strongest point, but with the music being just above average, it certainly hurts the consistency of the album.Latter pieces do include some very good moments, on par with Cast's best efforts on the previous albums, like the romantic and more Neo Prog-flavored ''Allow me'', the dramatic ''Mayday'' with the huge organ waves, while ''Hidden poems'' excels through the first bunch of tracks, being heavily Classical-oriented and containing some good switches between different themes.

Not a bad album, but one of the less interesting works on Cast's repertoire.The talent is there as always, it has not been translated though into really satisfying compositions on ''Endless signs''.Anyway, Neo Prog and Symphonic Rock buffs will apprecaie some of the contained material...2.5 stars.

When I wrote my first review here in PA in August 16, 2009 (review #231937), the chosen band was the Mexican CAST, and my reasons for this choice at that time was my perplexity on perceived which, this fantastic band was so underrated . This rejection or indifference by the prog fans ( I think) is due by the low record and mixing quality in some of their albuns. But this isn't the case of "Endless Signs" 1995, a superb albun, and in my humble opinion one of the best releases from that year in the same level as for instance "Back in the World of Adventures" from TFK and "As the World" by ECHOLYN, another great albuns from that year. In my vision this is the moment of their career in which the sound of CAST reaches (for the first time) his plenitude, after the almost "without-energy" first album "Landing in a Serious Mind", their first approach into real progressive "land" in "Sounds of Imagination" and their worst records (in terms of recording and mixing process) - "Third Call" and "Four Aces" ( both very good albums , but with a terrible sound quality). Well... returning to object of this review , in "Endless Signs" ,CAST starts the disk with the first track "Signs of Future" in a melancholic" atmosphere" which makes the track acquire a certain "air" of introduction, where appears detached the vocals with a soft melody conducted by keyboards and electric guitar. The second track "Hidden Poems" shows a clearly overture like a "erupition" and assault the listener with a nervous rhythmic section side to side with a "saltatory" acoustic piano and almost crying guitar, soon the theme turn into a heavy-prog theme open the way to one fantastic lyrics which leads the track to a martial melody whit a pulsating bass guitar and after this moment isn't more possible resist to a involving instrumentation with guitar/keyboards duos and about 4 min 36 sec emerges the climax of music whem electric Guitar/ keyboards medlodic counterpoint "against" a broken beat conduction of bass and drums and retakes the initial "eruption" theme and his sequence closing the track in superb way. The Third track "Spirit of Man" is another martial theme, however more calm and slow, but also captivating, specially in their middle section where besides the keyboards prominence I want detach the great guitar melodie and the fantastic drums. Other remarkable tracks as track 6 "Allow Me" a very beautiful ballad and the last track "Nostrabamus", an instrumental track , which recall in certain moments musical passages from other previous tracks (mainly of track 3 "Spirit of Man") and closes the album with the initial theme from secound track "Hidden Poems". My rate is 5 stars !!!