CONFESIONES DE INVIERNO

"Confesiones de Invierno" (1973), the second album by Sui Generis, a band that combines folk structures with rock elements, is a step above the rudimentary freshness of their debut album "Vida" in its musical conception and the social commitment of its content, showing a greater maturity and strengthening the symbiotic relationship of Charly García and Nito Mestre, its co-creators.

The work unfolds in a context of profound human experiences that have to do, among other things, with the concern of those who visualise a lonely old age in "Cuando ya me Empiece a Quedar Solo", dominated by the melancholy of the bandoneón (a musical instrument fully identified with Argentine Tango), or with the frustration of the love that could not be in "Un Hada, un Cisne", or with the dramatic and orchestrated beauty of the love gone in "Rasguña las Piedras", or with the painful and deprived passing through life (jail and asylum included.... ) in the folk nudity that the acoustic guitar arpeggios propose in "Confesiones de Invierno", or with the serene rebelliousness of someone who resists to accept the educational and social conventions in "Aprendizaje" (also in a folk key), configuring a disenchanted scenario that perhaps was motivated by the complex political and social situation of Argentina at that time.

And while the springtime glow of the jovial, bluesy "Bienvenidos al Tren" and the bizarre description of a deranged family in the witty, rocking "Mr. Jones, o Pequeña Semblanza de una Familia tipo Americana" give the album a brief colourful tinge, the sense of gloom persists towards the end with García's dense and solid piano-led structure in "Tribulaciones, Lamento y Ocaso de un Tonto Rey Imaginario, o no", a track of intense social content in which a selfish king disconnected from reality is insensitive to the hardships of his people.

"Confesiones de Invierno" represented the highest media point in the career of Sui Generis, becoming one of the flagship albums in the history of Argentine rock, and immortalising the García-Mestre duo as an inescapable reference for the popular music of their country.

Very good

3.5/4 stars