LANZAS COLORADAS (OPERA ROCK)

Lanzas Coloradas is one of Venezuela's most pretentious musical projects. It consists on a rock opera presented on a double LP (one of the few ever produced in the country) based on Arturo Uslar Pietri's (one of the most respected Venezuelan writers and thinkers) book with the same title about the independence war of Venezuela (which ended liberating most of South America from the Spanish empire).

The music and lyrics were written and arranged by Angel Ferreyra (a very popular pop singer during the 80s... this album represents a very odd change of style) to be performed by a band he recruited and named Grupo Rockestra formed mainly by members of classic Venezuelan hard rock band Resistencia. Added to that, we have a huge amount of guest vocalists (some of them very prestigious) each performing the part of a different character in the story, probably the most renown of these is Latin-Grammy award winner and highly acclaimed Venezuelan folk music singer Simon Diaz.

Musically the album is very well written and cohesive with a variety of styles ranging from hard blues and psychedelic to symphonic and folk. The story and lyrics (all in Spanish) are amazing and, in my not so humble opinion, the highlight of the album, really capturing the spirit of the historic moment both political and human without forgetting the mysticism that surrounded the war of liberation.

The central element of the music are the highly emotive and skillful vocals, but the musicians involved show their skilled way of playing. The instrumental highlights of the album are the psychedelic guitars ala Pink Floyd with a heavier edge that emerge every now and then to give some amazing soloing, the always present funky bass, the fun keyboards that embellish the music and the versatile percussionist that almost imperceptibly varies from style to style according to the story and music from African and orchestral percussions to jazz and rock & roll drumming.

Besides the overall psychedelic hard blues mood of the album there are several symphonic sections such as the oberture, Spanish guitar-led ballads like Sus Negros Ojos and folkier pieces like Siempre Unidos.

This one is one of the most rare, pretentious and well achieved Venezuelan rock albums. Lanzas Coloradas is the first rock opera recorded in the country and is close in musical quality to Andrew Lloyd Webber's Jesus Christ Superstar. Not a masterpiece but an excellent addition to any prog rock music collection (if you can find it) due to the magnificent vocals and the more than competent accompanying musicians. All of that added to the simple and beautiful cover art featuring a llanero warrior using an electric guitar as a spear.