The reason why this album ‘happened’
in the first place was the ten years of friendship between the
musicians. It’s that friendship which acts as glue in order to
deliver the material on this album. They claim their friendship is
that strong that they surely have material for a multitude of
albums. But are we willing to listen to all of that material ? Let’s
give their debut album a critical spin first. With most of the songs
written between guitarist Pablo Marques and singer Robson Bertolossi
the Octophera material mainly consists of shorter songs which in
most cases firmly contain their roots. The band even goes as far as
offering it’s musicians a solo spot as does guitarist Marques during
his delicate acoustic guitarsolo ‘Inspraçao’. Next to the often
difficult sound of the Brazilian language the band also delivers a
composition sung in English which gives us a much better idea of the
international possibilities of the band. ‘The continuous rebirth of
life in the infinity of the horizon’ sadly isn’t the kind of
explosive song I expected because other than an impressive title
there’s little on offer here. On the other hand ‘Ibéria’ once again
offers the distinctive Brazilian colours we’re after. During ‘Pan’
the keyboards sadly disappoint because they are left way in the
background instead of being used as the counterpart for the guitar.
It’s like they heard my prayers as during ‘Marco’ the synths are
given the lead. However they don’t work at all together with the
guitar. It’s like both instruments are playing two different songs !
‘Marco’ is an epic build out of four individual parts. Here
Octophera finally starts to live giving every single instrument the
right space to complement to the group effort. ‘Febre’ is a nice
result fusing funky and jazzy aspects together right into ‘Nunca
mais irei pra longe de ti’ which even contains a couple of bars from
the Beatles classic ‘Here, there and everywhere’. Nice one ! But it
becomes a little too much when ‘Brincam nos sonhos, Bons Amigos’
kicks off with exactly the same chords as ‘Here comes the sun’ ! You
can say you’re a Beatles fanatic but ‘borrowing’ two main themes
from your heroes without mentioning it goes a little too far I’m
afraid !
Although I’m a sucker for personal songs the inclusion of
‘Calarei-me sem ti’ written by keyboardplayer Paulo Elizardo leaves
me with big questions. First of all the recording quality of this
song is far inferior than the other work on this album. Secondly
Paulo doesn’t really know how to sing whilst the quality of the
composition and his playing is very weak. All good intentions aside
but this “Bons amigos” album sadly remains the kind of album which
will only remain loved amongst “Bons amigos” and not a great deal
outside of that intimate circle. This can be enough for the band but
I doubt whether at all this justifies forthcoming releases as long
as they are of the same ‘quality’. Five musicians surely must have
the talent to deliver much better stuff than this. And I already had
such high hopes because they used recycled paper for their booklet.
After listening to the album I feel sorry they didn’t recycle some
of their songs !
Tracklist
As pioras coisas (4’41”)
Omega (4’08”)
Inspiraçao (2’40”)
Monges combatentes (3’46”)
Viagem ao jardim da aurora sem fim (5’47”)
The continous rebirth of life in the infinity
of the horizon (6’39”)
Ibéria (2’02”)
Pan (5’49”)
Marco (16’23”)
Calarei-me sem ti (4’44”)
Website in order to
promote progressive rock to a broader audience in Flanders but also in
the entire world. No part from this website may be used in any other
publication whether in print or on the world wide web without the
editor's consent - all material is exclusive to Prog-Nose and copyright
protected.
