SEPTENTRIÓN

I´m glad to review this album that i discovered something like 3 months ago, sadly it seems that only a few people knows it, (Erik) but here i am, to share my feel and to suggest it to other people.

It´s a surprise to find this band, i love the fact that every country has at least one or two excellent bands which represent progressive rock, i thought Cuba was really far to have progressive rock bands, but i have found a couple of excellent bands, one of them is "Sintesis" which i wont talk this time obviously, but it´s another great band, and A2nima Mundi" which is why i am here.

I I will tell you a brief history of the band, they started in 1996 with the leader Roberto Diaz after graduating of Musical Composition (guitar was his speciality), and little by little he was gather another friends/musicians during the next 5 years , the majority of them studied deeply some instrument, like clarinet Anais Gomez, or bagpipe Regis Rodriguez, then they were playing and created this album called "Septentrion" which was released in 2002, sadly, due to the departure of Ariel Valdez, the band has had a "stagnation" period since then.

About the album: Okay i wont bore you anymore with those dates, let´s talk about the album. Here you will find 12 songs, the first one "Horizonte" is kind of introduction, and instrumental, in fact there are various instrumental tracks, this first track could sound as a new age track, so dont think that New Age is the way of the album, then "Por Siempre" is another instrumental, but this time we will find the predominative sound of bagpipe, i simply love it, it´s maybe what makes this album unique and special, the song could sound a bit folkish due to that bagpipes, but then when keys and drums appears, you will notice a clear Neo sound.

"Centinela" is the first song which includes vocals, not outstanding nothing special but if you like vocals in spanish you could like it, the song is again plenty of keys and some soft guitars, also i like to sing it. We will find a lot of bagpipe here, it´s the sound or instrument that takes the album, and i like it because it´s something different, i mean we could find bagpipes on Mago de Oz albums or some Metal albums, obviously in some folk music, but in a symphonic band it´s not usua and that´s why i liked this album so much, but be careful, because if you dont like the sound of this instrument, then you will get bored easily.

A beautiful example and song is "La Montaña del Vigia" which is again completely instrumental but sooo enjoyable, i use to repeat that song when the album is over, also it sound a bit gypsy. "Las Praderas del Corazon" is my favorite song, not the best song of the album in my opinion, but i simply love it, i love the sound, the rythm and vocals, here they dont show us their best and most complex creation, but you might like this song. To finish the album we will find 3 excellent songs "El Hallazgo", "El Umbral" and "Septentrion", here we will notice a blend of all their elements , folk and symphonic passages, also in El Umbral we will find the best moment of guitars, trhoug the album there are lots of acoustic and soft guitar sounds, but this time they take the lead role and show us an excellent sound, the last song is excellent, very proggy and never boring, i said this because the album´s lenght is over 70 minutes, i dont like so much albums with more than an hour of music, it´s a personal feeling, when the music is good no matter it´s lenght, but i just wanted to point that if you feel the same, maybe when you arrive to the last 2 songs you could be a bit bored.

Now, i am waiting for Erik´s review and then hope other people giving a chance to it, it´s not a masterpiece, but it´s a great album in my opinion, i like it so much and i will suggest it to you, 4 stars, highly recommendable to any progfan.

Take this trip to Cuba!

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