LIBER SECUNDUS

I found out about Index with their third album Identidade. And I was quite impressed by their musical prowness and great songwriting. So much it became one of my favorite albums of last year. It was only natural that I had to find their earlier releases sooner or later. And I did with this Liber Secundus, their sophmore CD. the band of ex Quaterna Requiem guitarrist Jones Junior did not let me down: 24 carta symphonic prog in the vein of 70´s classic bands like Camel. Renaissance and Focus at their best. Unfortunatly this CD is marred by some mediocre, forced, vocals. Their forte is always instrumental prog.

Not that the band members blow it, but clearly, they should have recruited a real vocalist instead of handling the lead vocals themselves. Ok, they also had the help fo female background singers, but in the end it only enhanced how far behind are the lead vocals compared to everything else in the record. But let´s be fair: the songs are great, the playing is superb and the arrangements are tasteful and varied. In the end the positive side of this CD is much bigger than to the few negative ones (all related to... well, you know which).

It is no surprise that, to me at least, the best tracks are the instrumentals: the opener Lagrima (featuring a nice female wordless singing), the short, beautiful and delicate guitar and harmonica duo of Algemas de Cristal and the epic closer Novella. The remaining tracks are also very good, displaying Jones emotional guitar solos and licks, Otaviano Kury´s symphonic, vintage sounding keyboards, Ronaldo Schenato´s fluid bass lines and Leonardo Reis versatile drumming. Production is quite good.

In the and I think that if this album was totally instrumental I´d easily give it a five star rating. Still, after some spins I could go past the weak vocals and face the fact that even those non instrumentals are also excellent tunes themselves, all very well performed by people who knows how to deliver some great, complex and beautiful symphonic prog without losing sight of the melodic trait that only the best can do.

Final rating: somewhere between 4 and 4,5 stars. Highly recommended.