INTENCION

After their demo-level debut, Atila got a high reputation as a live band because of their high rocking energy compared to most catalan prog bands of the time who were doing a more sofisticated fusion-based prog. In '76 they got a deal with BASF, keyboardist Paco Ortega was replaced by Benet Nogué (who would also contribute the few vocals) and they recruited bassist Miguel Blasco, and everything was set for a proper album recording.

Their debut track The Beginning Of The End had become quite popular in their live acts but that album had been very poorly recorded and distributed, so they decided to re-record it in this their second album (the last track, here with the title translated to spanish El Principio Del Fin), which is a good and a bad thing. Good because it gives us a much more polished version, compressed from the original 30 min to 15, concentrating on the more musical sections and dropping much of the improvisation jams and reducing the drum solo to some 2.5 min. Bad because it's still proto-prog style and somehow lowers the overall quality of this album.

The three new tracks are much more evolved towards what would become the real Atila sound, a mix of symphonic RPI style, space-psych and hard rock. This is a trasition album where the last track, the reworked version of the debut El Principio Del Fin keeps the hard- rock proto sound and the new tracks show a more spacy sound and hints at symphonic. The next album Reviure would consolidate the sound eliminating the proto side and enhancing the symphonic one.

The first track Intencion starts in symphonic style with some female choirs, a bit like RPI, but then Eduardo Niebla's guitar provides that Deep Purple / Black Sabbath feel, then followed by a vocal section which may remind of Pink Floyd's Meddle period, although the guitar is not up to Gilmour's level. There are some synth effects sounding like space laser wars in a japanese B-sci-fi movie which sound completely outdated today but ok, we have to bear in mind the time of the recording.

Second track Cucutila starts with an epic sounding organ and quickly gets upbeat, it's instrumental except for some female choirs which seem taken from a musical such as the Rocky Horror Picture Show, good but a bit lacking coherence.

Dia Perfecto is the best track, a mix of space-rock and symphonic, featuring also some female choirs, probably the track which best anticipates their great 3rd album Reviure.

At this period Atila performed in the 1976 Canet Rock festival and they stole the show, they played in a small side stage but the audience got hooked on them, they were named the best act in the festival.

There are, as far as I know, 3 different CD editions of this album, 2 of them as a pack together with the 3rd album Reviure in which this album Intencion is the same, but not Reviure (see my review of Reviure for more details) and a Wah Wah release including a bonus track "Un Camel De Xocolata" which is a reworked version of the vocal parts of the track Intencion, recorded during the band reunion in 1999.