A RE-VOLTA

Veludo was one of the most important underground bands in Brazil during the 70´s, but never released anything during that time. The only CD available of that period is a live album recorded during a festival in Rio, released some twenty years after the event (although it is erroneously cited as 1975, the effective year of that show). In 2002 founder member Elias Mizrahi (keyboards, guitars and vocals) joined forces with original member Gustavo Schroeter (drums and percussion) and newcomer Lincoln Bittencourt (bass) to record and album under the Veludo banner. The title is a word game with revolta (revolt) and re-volta (re-turn). It went largely unnoticed and only recently I came to know of its existence.

I was not quite happy to see this band coming up as a trio. I wish they had come back as a full band and less like a Elias Mizrahi solo record using the famous name. Certainly the CD has an overall band feeling, but it is also clear that he is is calling all the shots here. Veludo had two distinctive phases during their lifetime: a more straight ahead hard rock;/progressive combo at the first half of the 70´s and a more prog folk outfit after 1975 . Re-volta is more of the first, with generous doses of brazilian popular music and a few jazz rock/fusion leanings added here and there. It´s almost totally keyboards driven, although veteran guitarist/producer Marcelo Sussekind does add guitars on a couple of tracks. The music here in general is good, not too much noodling, all tracks are relatively short. There are a lot of instrumentals, but with Mizhari sounding surprisingly good as the lead singer on the vocal tracks. Sometimes the influences of ELP are obvious (Imperio Romano), but most of the time it sounds like a good mix of brazilian fusion with some progressive moments. It is quite varied and pleasant enough. Nothing to write home about it, but very good and interesting anyway. The best track is the instrumental La Sonata Claríssima (with a very nice guitar solo from Sussekind). Production is also good, but not spectacular.

Overall a nice effort, although not the Veludo I heard of in the 70´s. This is more like a solo album from Elias Mizrahi, and in this vein, quite convincing. Despite of not being what I wanted to hear from them, I was glad to find this CD and it is worth a listen. Final rating: 3.5 stars.