SUPER ROBOT

I heard about this artist and album through my PA colleague and good friend Marty Mcfly. I should say I´m not an eastern europe speciallist in any way. In fact, I´m still beginning in this field. And other than some obvious groups (like Tako and Omega), I rarely heard anything from that part fo the continent. Ota Petrina is a solo performer from Czech Republic and I heard he used to write pop songs for other acts. Super Robot however is much more progressive and has no pop tendencies at all.

I found the album to be very good, with a extremely fine production for the time and place (some remastering here? I don´t know. But the sound is excellent). I really don´t know the political and social implications of this kind of artist and style in Czxechoslovaquia at the time, but living in a country that was still under a military dictatorship in 1978, I can feel some similarities in terms of feeling and mood. Musicly speaking, Super Robot sounds to me like a mix of blues rock, psychedelic and krautrock (specially the vocals) mixed with heavy doses of folk. The guy is obviously a fine slide guitar player.

Although I can hardly say this is symphonic rock, it is still an excellent work. And if you like the aforementioned styles then you should not miss this one. There is no fillers and the album is quite varied and interesting from start to finish (including the two bonus tracks). It is a mostly guitar led album, of course, but there are also some fine keyboards works too in the background (including nice subtle orchestrations). It took me several spins to get used to the vocals (yes, I´m very demanding in that department). but he is not a bad singer. Just different. The musicanship of all involved and Petrina´s songwriting is excellent.

Rating: hard to rate. Personally I´d give this album 3,5 stars (very good overall, but not my favorite type of music) but I´ll round up to four, since I´m taking in consideration the cultural and social importance of this artist and his hard work in a difficult enviroment (to say the least!). Besides, compared to much of the work produced by other bands in 1978, Super Robot is brilliantt!