GALIÉ

Long time without supporting and reviewing an album by a mexican band, this time i have the will of introducing to you another jewel of the mexican stuff, sadly another unknown jewel called Galie, a band which started to play together in 1979, all of them have a previous knowledge of progressive rock, fact which make easier the understanding between them, Galie is (was) a band which features 7 members, and if you read the bio listed here in Prgo Archives, by the way a short but well written bio, you will know that the name of Galie was a simple game of the musicians`names, all their starting letters were placed to form the word Galie, strange no?

Galie`s albums have dissapeared, i haven`t found any original even here in Mexico where they belong, the sad thing is that it happens to several bands which attemp to make great music, but the people`s support or tastes dont help them in their career, Galie was a project of people who enjoy music and play only for love, not for money nor for recognizion.

To be honest with you and because of the lack of information about them, im not really sure when this album was released, because in a book that i own, it says that was in 1980, in another website in 1985 (which for sure is wrong) and PA in 1981 so i can imagine it could have been recorded in the late 80 early 81, and in taht era when progressive rock was dying, Galie put a word in the air and said, hello here are still good music, so now the review.

"Obertura", yes, another first track of an album called "overture" haha, not original but pretty good, the sound is soft, easy listening here and there, something like a pretty symphonic sound, which could be enjoyable at anytime, here the piano and moog sound is which domains the song, despite the sound of a nice acoustic guitar. An important fact, maybe if you dont accept soft and cute symphonic sound, you will get bored since the first song, which also features a beautiful flute sound.

"Galie" is the self titled track, you know loads of bands have used their names at least in a part of a lyric, this is the long song, a nice 7 minutes piece, which starts with a synth sound which gives you a lot of tranquility , warning, im not saying that it could be new age or music to fall asleep or a simply easy listening music, the fact is that the songs tend to have a soft and nice sound, again here predominates the acoustic guitar in some parts of the song with weird sound, and also i can guarantee that Italian 70`s bands were their main influence.

"Wadi" is not and outstanding song, in fact is so alike to the other ones, flute - guitar oriented song, with nice bass and drums during the songs, and the piano or synths in some moments , in my opinion is maybe one of the proggiest songs here, them all are, but because it has a very soft sound, with no mood changes, this is the better one.

"Solap", i dont have idea what solap means, maybe is a personal history within the band, anyway musically it reminds me some happy Capolinea moments, with a nice bass sound making the rythm and the so mentioned flute sound, which i think is repetitive during the song, not for that fact means that it`s boring or not good, this makes a faster sound, without losing their essence and the road that the album took, i like it because somewhere during the song they show us their musicianship, great song.

"La Noche" is another clear example of a clasic progressive sound, a beatiful song indeed, maybe my favorite of the album, if not, is one of , maybe you could say that im waasting my time saying the same, because this song again features a great flute and acoustic guitar sound, im just telling you my point of view in each song, the music has not odd time signatures, which could make it less challenging and original, but believe me, not less great, this song reminds me again to some PFM tones because of the keyboard sound.

"El Ultimo Sueño de Paganini", as you noticed they were also influenced by clasical musicians, despite i read in another place that Galie`s music is tend to move towards jazz, i say a clear no, it`s a classic symphonic sound, in this song what predominates is the piano work, maybe Ignacio Cordero (keys and piano) is who i consider the head of the band and im pretty sure that Rick Wakeman passed in his mind when he was playing, in fact it reminds me a bit of Maneige.

"La Fuente" is the last track of this good album, a pretty nice song to finish a pretty nice album, which could be considered as an album lack of creativity or very soft to the power of progressive rock, the song is nothing more that the same flute acoustic guitar easy ryhtm base, but again nice.

In a few words, a great classic symphonic album of my land, recommendable to any prog fan who can enjoy this kind of music, i want to grade it with 4 stars, because of the music and because im trying to make known mexican bands, but after all i think it deserves only 3 stars.

Good!!!