SOM IMAGINÁRIO II [AKA: A NOVA ESTRELA]

Flower Power in Brazil

Except the first song Conouras the second album of SOM IMAGINÁRIO is very calm. This release has a tremendous FlowerPower flavour - mellow with nice melodies and good vocals. Ascenso for example is a wonderful emotional song with acoustic guitar. The musicians are using styles like Psychedelic, Folk and Symphonic to perform songs for relaxing after hours of hard working.

I'm not able to find many unique brazilian moments - excepting the portuguese vocals of course - and the title track A nova Estrala with flute and whistles. This is my favourite song - exciting because very psychedelic/symphonic with excellent organ playing - unfortunately faded out too early.

The second Som Imaginario album leans far more towards a classic psych sound, which I feel is a shame because a lot of the songs end up being rather unmemorable. I can't pick out any tracks here, for example, which are as striking or original or as powerful as the electrifying Super God from the debut. Still, the album is perfectly pleasant to listen to and is a reasonable slice of flower power-flavoured psychedelia from an era in which that style had been drifting out of style in its US homeland but still found fertile homes in new scenes abroad. Not as groundbreaking as the debut, and perhaps a little weaker, but still good enough to convince me that Som Imaginario still had something to say at this point.