THE STORM

On their second album (1979) a lot of changes: a new bass player, vocals in Spanish, and a new musical direction, more towards melodic progressive rock. I notice elements from Dutch masters Focus and Earth & Fire, and 70s and 80s Camel. Especially in the first track Este Mundo (slow rhythm with volume pedal guitar, Hammond organ and a moving guitar solo) and Saeta Ensayo (part 2, pleasant mid-tempo beat and soaring strings). The first part delivers wonderful work on the string-ensemble and sensitive electric guitar, in a swinging rhythm and lush synthsizers. The titletrack and Desde El Mar Y Las Estrellas contain pleasant and varied work on guitar and keyboards with strong Spanish vocals. The only song that reminds me of the first album is Lejos De La Civilizacion, hardrock with strong Spanish vocals and fiery wah wah guitar.

A nice effort, by good musicians, with tastefully arranged compositions, and good Spanish vocals.

This is a tale of two different styles of music. We get the five short vocal tracks that are fast paced, catchy with plenty of attitude. I'm not into any of the five to be honest which is why I can't give this 4 stars. The three longer songs are instrumentals and they slow them down and they are so much better. Oh man an album of this please! Of those "Crazy Machine" is the longest at 7 minutes and we get a long drum solo, some jazzy stuff and much more. This is track seven of eight and the closer is also an instrumental so the album ends strong. The guitar provides a light show here. The best of the three though might be track three the way they repeat themes and the organ is given some room. I do like the bass on this record and especially on this track.

This is just over 33 minutes and those five short tracks are fiery vocal songs that would have went over well live to a non-prog crowd. They are commercial tunes for sure. I have mixed feelings for this record but the 3.5 star rating expresses how I feel the best.

On their debut album The Storm delivers mainly rock songs with simple (in general) English lyrics, heavy guitarwork and cascades of Hammond organ (great solos in Woman Mine and It's All Right), often Atomic Rooster (John DuCann line-up) comes to my mind because of the swirling Hammond organ, fiery electric guitar and exciting heavy climates. At some moments The Storm surprises the listener with interesting musical ideas. Like in the long and progressive Crazy Machine (biting wah-wah guitar and jazzy interlude with outstanding Hammond work), I Don't Know (break with swinging rhythm guitar and lush Hammond) and Experiencia Sin Organo (Black Sabbath meets Led Zeppelin with heavy guitar runs).

If you like Hammond drenched progressive hard rock like Atomic Rooster, Uriah Heep and Deep Purple, this band is worth to check out.

My rating: 3,5 star.

Other interesting (and often overlooked) Seventies Spanish prog albums: Franklin - Lice Cycle / Canarios - Ciclos / Las Grecas - Gypsy Rock / Atila - Intencion / Abedul - Nosotros / Azabache - Dias De Luna.

`Este Mundo' is a cool opening rocker full of atmosphere and pensive mood, with plenty of whirring keyboard variety and bashing drums throughout, and although not quite as heavy blasting as the debut, there's still a welcome grunt to the guitars that instantly calls to mind that first album, given an extra touch of bite during the solos. `La luz de tu voz' is a slow-burn rocker with nice floating synths and a sweetly grumbling tone to the guitars, but the standout spot is a repeating infectious chorus where the lead voice soars with confidence.

The band definitely play their prog-card on `Saeta ensayo (1st Parte)', a lightly proggy instrumental that probably wouldn't have sounded out of place on the Camel albums of the same later Seventies period. A slow fade-in reveals crisp guitar runs chugging in unison alongside fanciful synth themes, with the lightest of dance-like flavours to the drumbeats to help it maintain an infectious and up- tempo energy the whole time, and there's plenty of wailing soloing throughout.

So enjoyable is the close of the first side that the band kick right back in with a second run at `Saeta ensayo, and `2nd Parte' reprises similar moments but also slows down for some more powerful gutsier spots, but before too long it's all galloping riff guitars soloing madly alongside frantic synth wig-outs. The freewheeling and joyful `Lejos de la Civilizacion' is a lightweight but spirited pop-rocker, and `Desde el mar y las Eestrellas' is tougher but holds a firm romantic quality with epic guitar soloing straight to the heart around the warmest of humming synths, and just listen to the sweetly murmuring bass throughout! Closer `El dia de la Tormenta' is simply another pop- rocker, the highlight being some almost trilling reprising synth-pop breaks from the keyboards.

The Storm would fold soon after this album, and sadly this second release is completely overshadowed by the hard-rocking debut (although that one's reputation is well deserved!). Because `El Dia de la Tormenta' has such a strong `pop' melodicism throughout it will likely be a bit too easily dismissed by stuffier proggers, but it retains a great dignity with strong vocals, intelligent and restrained yet dynamic playing and easy to enjoy rock tunes given light prog touches. It actually shows a lot more depth, variety and thought than the debut, and it just might be (whisper it!) the better of their two albums!

Absolutely a three and a half star album well worth the listen for the more forgiving of prog fans. A great album!

Opener `I've Gotta Tell You Mama' is a punchy three-minute up-tempo rocking blast of energy, all Ángel's crunchy guitars, José Torres' thick slab bass, Diego's snappy drumming and Luis Genil's dense dirty Hammond backing an infectious chorus. The spiky `I Am Busy' is another brash rock n' roller with plentiful twisting grooves and shrieking vocal outbursts, but even better is `Un señor llamado Fernández de Córdoba', a chilled instrumental jam driven by guitars that move from dreamy ringing chimes to grumbly slow-burn bluesy meltdowns with just a touch of an early Pink Floyd/David Gilmour sound to them. Then there's a great raspy lead vocal and nice wiry guitar grooves with strangled acid-rock wailing soloing throughout the sweaty and sexy first side closer `Woman Mine', and dig that subdued little sparkling Hammond organ break in the second half that keeps getting belted with heavy bluster and noise!

Side B's `It's All Right' is a harmless hip-swivelling Hammond organ-coated groovy rock n' roller with a catchy group chorus, ditto the dirtier `I Don't Know' and its raucous lead vocal, mangled guitar noise with a little lightly jazzy break in the middle. The seven minute `Crazy Machine' offers another snarling improvised jam that also throws in purring jazzy breaks and spacey psych interludes, and it's crammed with endless widdly-diddly guitar tantrums, violent swirling organ washes and machine-gun fire drumming (Diego even charges into the `oh-so-Seventies' obligatory drum solo!). Fast and furious instrumental closer `Experiencia sin órgano' burns with a heavy bluesy strut and wraps the set on no shortage of howling guitar histrionics.

The Storm would release a gentler and more lightly proggy follow-up ` El Dia de la Tormenta (`The Day of the Storm')' at the end of the decade before splitting in the early Eighties, but their reputation is more or less sustained on the strength of this powerhouse debut rocker. It's not so much that the group were especially original, but what they did, they did damn well, and any band from the era that played in a similar style would have killed to have such a strong work in the discography! Great energetic playing and cool catchy tunes - what more could you want?

Four stars...and don't forget to play it LOUD!

Storm is a band whose material indeed does merit a CD release. They were a talented band back in the day, and especially their debut album and its hard rock foundation with progressive rock details and occasional full-song excursions into this realm an interesting one also 40 years later. Their second album isn't by far as interesting, more of a time typical excursion into radio-friendly melodic rock in terms of general style, but still with occasional, albeit subdued, slight nods towards progressive rock. A band and a production that merits a check by those who find '70s hard rock, melodic rock and progressive rock to be of a fairly equal interest as far as musical taste is concerned.

"The Storm " (1974) is hard-riffing heavy rock sung in English. As with Deep Purple, the organ has a big role. I don't enjoy the vocal tracks, the rough singing is very pushed and pretentious as it tries to sound heavy. Some songs are just plain poor and clichéd. There are three instrumentals; with the exception of guitar-heavy 'Experiencia Sin Órgano', meaning Experience Without Organ, they are the highlights for me. All in all this 34-minute album is not spectacular. Hardly it has notable historic value either, unlike e.g. PAN & REGALIZ' sole album from a few years earlier. The production however is quite OK.

After disbanding in 1976 - because of the Army duties - they returned in 1978. Only the bassist had changed. Funnily the two preceding reviews of The Storm prefer the debut over the second album, El Dia de la Tormenta (1979). Well, I enjoy it much more! Firstly, it's good to hear them perform in their own language.

Now the heavy rock aspect is mostly put aside, even the almost-normalized singing is much better. Actually it makes me think of Swedish KAIPA's debut album: it's not quite as high, but the singing style is rather similar. Especially on the opening track, which is the hardest rocking, there still are some heavy rock mannered vocal harmonies and vibrato too. From the second track onwards ('La Luz de Tu Voz' means the light of your voice, I suppose) one hears a notable pop attitude in compositions and playing. A lot had happened in music during those five years, and it's interesting to hear how it shows in The Storm's music. Naturally we must remember that many brave European artists kept on doing fine progressive rock at the risk of being ignored, and unfortunately this album cannot be counted in that category. It simply is too commercial-sounding for that.

But still I like it. The music is not TOO poppy, and there certainly are some progressive elements. Synths come to the fore especially on the two-part instrumental 'Saeta Ensayo', which in its melodic airiness reminds me of some CAMEL stuff. Also the electric guitar gets some soloing, after which the various organ sounds get more playful. 'Lejos de la Civilización' is rather straight-forward simplistic pop song, but a nice one. 'Desde el Mar Y las Estrellas' is very enjoyable song with lots of emotion and elegant soloing for Moog and electric guitar. Really great melodies here! The title track approaches disco-like beat and features a bit outdated synth carpets.

I'm not totally sure if I'll keep this set on my shelves, but it certainly was a pleasure to come across. By the way, if both albums were put in one disc, it would have been only about 72 minutes long. I'm really difficult to charm with multi-folded covers if the illustration is nothing special.

With a new bassist Pedro Garcia replacing Jose Torres they attempted to adapt to the new times but there was a clear hesitation regarding the musical direction to take and the result was rather disappointing.

The Hammond is replaced by synths, the early 70's Deep Purple sound is totally gone and it's quite impossible to recognize that this is the same band that recorded that 1974 debut album. The lyrics are now in Spanish, and rather poor by the way.

The style is a rather inconsistent mix of mid 70's prog such as Pink Floyd, commercial pop rock, flamenco-rock (Triana had been very successful in the previous years) and the soft heavy rock made popular at the time by bands like Scorpions or Rainbow.

The opener Este Mundo is far from great but it's decent, you could think of a hard version of Pink Floyd.

La Luz De Tu Voz and Desde El Mar y Las Estrellas are decent ballads but nothing remarkable.

The instrumental Saeta Ensayo, split in two parts by the LP format with Part 1 on side A and Part 2 on side B was probably intended to be the link to prog, it explores some variations on the main keyboard melodic line but it's rather weak.

Lejos De La Civilizacion and El Dia De La Tormenta are simply dispensable pop songs.

This was the last album by a band who should have delivered much more, the talent was there but they fell prey of the weak economics in Spain at the time, the military service break of its members and the fall of prog in the second half of the 70's.

Keyboardist Luis Genil died in 2004 and while the band has reunited for some gigs it does not seem likely that they will be back with good prog music on studio.

Storm became loved for their powerful live performances, they supported Queen in Barcelona in December 1974 and Freddie Mercury had only praises for them and was surprised that they did not have international exposure, he and Roger Taylor went personally to their dressing room to congratulate them and after having seen Diego's drum solo Roger did not dare playing his on that evening's show. Diego was indeed a great drummer and his solos were spectacular, he would leave the drumkit and continue soloing tapping with his feet and drumming on anything he could find with the drumsticks, and Angel's guitar solos were no less of a show, emulating Hendrix, Page & co playing his Strat with his teeth, a drumstick or a glass.

They played proggy hard rock much in the style of Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin or Atomic Rooster, with the interplays between guitar and Hammond and a very powerful drumming being their signature features.

In 1974 they finally released this debut album, recorded basically live at Madrid's Audiofilm studio in a record time of 4 and a half hours. Most lyrics are in English interspersed with a bit of Spanish but clearly the lyrics were not the focus point. The original vinyl is highly priced in the collectors world.

I've Gotta Tell Your Mama and It's All Right are just hardrockers, not bad but not too interesting from a prog perspective. Then we have some hard rocking songs but which add some juice by incorporating some time signature changes or interesting shifts, these include I'm Busy, Woman Mine and I Don't Know. Great songs.

And then we have the three great instrumental tracks which are the real meat for proggers: Un Señor Llamado Fernandez De Cordoba (dedicated to their eccentric manager Jose Luis Fernandez De Cordoba) and Crazy Machine are all about great interplays between guitar and Hammond (Crazy Machine including a 2 min drum solo), and the closer Experiencia Sin Organo (Organ-less Experience) which is pure guitar delight in a Zeppelinesque style.

Fans of the best Deep Purple will love this one. Unfortunately the compulsory military service prevented them from staying alive from 1975 to 1978, and by that time the music scene had changed a lot, they would release a 2nd and last album in 1979 but with a rather different style and little success.

You can watch a 30 min performance on a 1975 spanish TV show here, just add http:// in front of this tu.tv/videos/storm-concierto-en-directo-en-tve-1975