PABLO "EL ENTERRADOR"

In 1983 as the military junta came to an end in Argentina, this four piece band aptly named "Paul the gravedigger" released a late contribution to the once vivid South American progressive rock scene, then quietly disappeared before reforming in the late 90s.

With two fourths playing the keys, one can expect a keyboard heavy album and yes, Tony Banks Duke-era inspired piano is all over this album. In fact Genesis comes to mind quite often, especially on 'Quién gira y quién sueña'. Front-, axe- and bassman José Blanc provides a soft spanish vocal, but gets rather aggressive on 'Accionista' (some people call this the albums weakest song, while I agree that it is more mainstream it still is a great little song). Blanc's guitar style resembles Steve Hackett albeit a bit more jazz influenced, I especially like him soloing over the odd time end section of 'Espiritu esfumado'. This band has in general a great sense of melody (another comparison would be Italy's Locanda Delle Fate), demonstrated beautifully on the opening 'Carrousell de la vieja idiotez'. They close each side with an instrumental, the last song 'La herencia de Pablo' being the albums longest and most playful song, while 'Ilusion en siete octavos' is, as the name suggests, in seven time.

From a musical standpoint this release is among the best that South America ever produced, but there are two caveats. First off, this is a vinyl release from early 80s South America, so surface noise is omnipresent and the cover (the later "Japanese" pressing is still an Argentinian one, just housed in a japanese Obi) is very fragile and the print quality isn't that great. Second, this production is atrocious with both the vinyl and CD release having their own set of issues. The CD sounds like it's being played through a pillow. The vinyl has wow and flutter and distortion all over the place, especially on the last two tracks. My copy is in great condition, but it makes my turntable sound broken beyond repair. Cymbals can be the devil sometimes. If you can get past this, you will (excuse me) dig this record.

Adressing that I still give the album a full five stars, even though it has production issues, I want to base my rating solely on music terms (seeing that Bancos first album also suffers from weak production an still gets high grades, I'm not alone in that type of rating)

~ first published at 'audio.philip' on Instagram ~