666

The most "hybrid" album I've ever listened to, and at the same time one of my favourites. This album was recommended to me by my brother when I started to delve much more into unknown prog environments and the truth is that the introduction to everything with this album was a great decision.

Well... How to start... 666, third and last release by Aphrodite Child, is an album, or rather I should say "mind trip", released in 1972. The concept of "6 6 6" was created by Vangelis and film director Costas Ferris, who served as lyricist for the project.

"∞" ("Infinity"), the most controversial song on the album, consists of Greek actress Irene Papas chanting "I was, I am, I'm to come" over a sparse percussion track, gradually building into an orgasmic frenzy. Vangelis described the track as conveying "the pain of birth and the joy of sexual intercourse".

My favourite songs on the album are "The Beast" and "All the Seats Were Occupied". "The Beast" is bar fight style rock & roll, with a background chorus of agonised vocals as an aggravated voice narrates the appearance and presence of the much memorialised "Beast". "All the Seats Were Occupied" is the longest song on the album, and a piece of music that summons different melodies and rhythms from the album's length.

The best experience is achieved if you lie down with headphones and close your eyes. At least, that's the way I used to listen to this masterpiece and I must admit that's why I call it a "mental journey", hearing such a gem for the first time was something splendid and magnificent, as much as the very presence of the songs in my ears. Every moment of the album thrills equally and leaves you surprised and shocked by the level this band reaches, and I know I'm not giving much information about what the album is ultimately about, but I honestly can't describe in words what it feels like to hear this for the first/second/whatever time. The only thing I could tell you is to listen to it as I said and be dazzled by it for yourself,

The album ends with "Break", a more peaceful and comforting instrumental that welcomes you to a quiet end after the whole hellish odyssey that is the album.

666 seemed a rather complex project by the band's standards, they had to recruit several Greek artists such as Irene Papas, Harris Chalkitis and Michel Ripoche.

The System/Babylon: 5/5

Loud, Loud, Loud: 3.5/5

The Four Horseman: 3.5/5

The Lamb: 5/5

The Seventh Seal: 4/5

Aegian Sea/Seven Bowls/The Wakening Beast: 5/5

Lament/The Marching Beast/The Battle of The Locusts/Do It: 3.5/5

Tribulaton: 2.5/5

The Beast: 5/5

Ofis: ?

Seven Tumprets/Altamont/The Wedding of The Lamb/The Capture of The Beast/Infinity Simbol: 5/5

Hic And Nunc: 5/5

All the Seats Were Occupied: 5/5

Break: 5/5

10/10, 5 stars for the most abnormally fantastic astral/infernal journey (or whatever, it's wonderful, you get the idea) that I could witness with my ears, and that I recommend for every lover of long conceptual works with stories, characters, references, etc... What else to say, just listen to it.

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