THE VEIL IS BROKEN I: CHILDHOOD

Rodrigo San Martin might be an unfamiliar name to those outside the argentine prog scene from Argentina, but he has steadily been becoming one of the most important figures in the resurgence of the progressive/symphonic genre in my country for the last decade. Besides being a fantastically creative and prolific musician his efforts don't just stay on the musical side of things. He leads La Resistencia Progresiva Argentina, a group of progressive rock bands from Buenos Aires with the objective of promoting the genre via different initiatives such as free festivals (five Baires Prog Fests with different bands in 2016 and early 2017 alone), as well as the 7/4 Awards to Argentine Prog (voted by the actual musicians from 35 prog bands themselves), and many more.

I was very eager for this Rock Opera which Rodrigo has been teasing his fans for two years now and my first reaction was underwhelmed. He decided to divide his 2 hour album in four parts and I think it was a bad choice.

Not that any of them are bad, they're actually pretty good, but the hype just couldn't be matched.

Let's go back a few years. Rodrigo San Martín released his seminal album Eyes in 2012, the Vanished from Earth debut in 2013 and two absolutely marvelous gems in 2014 called A Lullaby from Mankind and Souls Ingite's Chaos. This is an impressive album streak that was followed by a grand announcement: a 2 hour long rock opera with one particular detail. It wouldn't have a tracklist, it was written to be played in shuffle mode.

All of the 20ish songs would flow into any of the other, creating a giant mega-epic that was meant to be completely different (but always coherent) every time you listened to it.

This is insane, the possibilities, not just by the random mode, but also the posibility to invent the perfect track order for every user. He even mentioned that the story behind this big concept was a mistery the listener had to solve for himself.

So finally, two years after the announcement I had before my eyes the first part of this over-ambitious project. But Rodrigo San Martín changed his mind. He thought that 2 hours of music would be too much for the common audience and split the album in four pieces, representing the four stages of the protagonist's life. Well, there goes the mistery and the customizable of track order...

I couldn't help myself really, after so much hype and anticipation I was presented with only a five song ep (20 minutes) that narrated the childhood of the character, instead of a two hour long mega-epic. This feeling continued after the first few spins. The music is, of course, magnificently composed and performed by Rodrigo and his all star Argentine band (as well as an international guest), but my expectations where too many to be fulfilled. On his behalf I gotta say that his promise was met: any order of the 5 tracks flows into the other four, making a 20 min epic that works in any order.

It was a few months later when Rodrigo released the second part of the Opera (The Veil is Broken II: Adolescence) that things started to make more sense. That section started with a 12 min epic called Song of 1972 that kicked so much ass that had me hypnotized for a few weeks. I listened to it endlessly until I became very familiar with most of it's (ever appearing) details and themes. And then I got it.

I gotta admit that this track was so good that I had never actually listened to the rest of the album, to avoid further let downs. But I finally did it and I was in love with the music. THIS is the Rodrigo San Martín album I was expecting all this years.

So I took note of his original claims and made a playlist with Part One and Part Two of the album and everything suddenly clicked.

The Veil is Broken I: Childhood now made complete sense. I could see the genesis of the musical themes that where developed and intertwined on the Adolescense part, and they where glorious.

The ten songs from the first two segments, once again, followed Rodrigo's original announcement. They all flow into any of the other, and now we can make a 45 minute ever-changing epic.

The release of part three around christmas 2016 only augmented my feelings for the album and I decided to review thw whole damn thing, so I sat down with part one once again and found it deeply beautiful.

1 - Left out: beautiful chorues guitar arppegios over a keyboard drone start the album and we meet Charlie Giardina's emotional vocals narrating the inner struggles of a child who can't find his place in the world so he decides to hide away on his own fantasies. Rodrigo San Martín's compositional skills and melody- crafting are his main abilities and he knows full well how to take advantafe of his strenghts. The final chorus, after a slow and creepy mellotron build up, where backing singer Canela Sol fuses her voice with Giardina's is orgasmic.

2 - Before my Eyes: my opinion on this track have varied a lot over time. The first time I heard it I was excited because the band was playing at full strenght in this instrumental piece, but I found it's lack of a recognizable "form" to be really confusing. No part of this five minute song repites anywhere making it really hard to remember or recognize. Al the melodies are great and the solos are terrific, but I could't realy find the meaning in this track. It was weird for such a great composer to ignore "Form" altogether, since it was always one of his main ingredients. When I heard the second part of the rock opera, and analyzed al the themes from Song of 1972 I got it, and it was confirmed when Part 3 came out. FORM is not lacking in Before my Eyes at all. It's an overture for the whole album and utilizes (one after the other) all the main themes that appear in all four parts of the rock opera. (that's why it's called Before my Eyes, like your life flashing before your eyes before dying). When I realized this I found a lot of themes that already appeared on other tracks on the Childhood section being performed here very differently and it became one of my favourite songs.

3 - Back to the Promised Land: this is a slow acoustic song sung by Osvaldo Mellace, with backing vocals once again by Canela Sol. It's quite beautiful and that's pretty much there is to say to it. It's theme was foreshadowed on the previous track but it reaches it's most beautiful form on a track from Part 3 of the rock opera called My Time is Gone.

4 - Superstar: this tracks, just like Before my Eyes, summarize my first impresions of the album: at first listen it was just a simple rock song and I was let down by it. Yes, it's sounds good, but I expect much more intricancies from someone like Rodrigo San Martin (specially after sucha mellow track as Back to the Promised Land). Upon further analisis I started to find many interesting details that were lost on my first dismissal of it. The flute work (done by San Martin himself) is amazing and reminds of Ian Anderson, as is the killer guitar solo in the middle section. Mellace's vocals are great, with his very Greg Lakeasque voice. It just when I started to write this review that I noticed that the beat of the song is not 4/4 but 7/4. Not a simple rock song after all...

5 - Epica: the final track of the EP is a proper prog-folk track. It starts with a beautiful harpsichord medieval intro (featuring one of the main themes, which was so well hidden that I had to listen to it in the apotheosis of Song of 1972 to realize that it had been foreshadowed many times on the first EP). Craig Kerleys powerful vocals carry the song into orchestral heavy prog territory. There's is a fantastic instrumental duel between between Rodrigo San Martín's guitar and Fernando Refay's synths on the height of the track, before fusing into a wonderful unison that brings us back to the the main chorus and Kerley's raw power.

And the song doens't end. I didn't understand it at first, but if it ended it woudn't flow into the others...

So, The Veil is Broken: Childhood is the first part of a super ambitious rock opera and it's very good indeed, but I think Rodrigo made a mistake by separating it into four parts, and the one that suffers the most from the absence of the whole opera is this one.

Even so, The Veil is Broken (or at least the three out of four parts that have been released by the time I wrote this) is a remarkable effort from one (if not THE) best composer of modern latin american prog. And it actually FULFILLS it's inital hype, when listened as a whole.

Give it a try, it's free on bandcamp.