Search - Espiritu :: Libre Y Natural

Great second album by this Argentine prog band

BENJAMIN MILER | Veneta, Oregon | 10/28/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I have to say that Espiritu, along with Crucis, Bubu, Alas, and Pablo "El Enterrador" is one of the finest prog rock bands to come out of Argentina. Espiritu formed in 1973 and released a single that year. In 1975 they released their debut LP, Crisalida, which is a fine example of prog rock, bringing to mind PFM with the harder-edged Italian bands like Semiramis or Biglietto per L'Inferno. In 1976, they released their following album, Libre y Natural. Keyboardist Gustavo Fidel had left the band to be replaced by Ciro Fogliatta (obviously an Italian name, you have to bear in mind Argentina had many Italian immigrants from the 1880s until the Juan Peron-era). Fogliatta is credited to Mellotron, but I don't notice any, he uses the exact same keyboard setup as his predecessor: Solina string synth, Moog, Hammond organ. The rest of the original band is still there with vocalist/drummer Carlos Goler, guitarist Osvaldo Favrot, bassist Claudio Martinez, and vocalist Fernando Berge.



Libre y Natural is a fantastic followup to Crisalida, a more mature offering, in my opinion. There's less emphasis on acoustic instruments, it's sorta Espiritu's own version of PFM's Chocolate Kings (not that Libre y Natural sounds like Chocolate Kings, just the more hard-edge approach, and less emphasis on pastoral, acoustic passages, plus the vocals are in Spanish and in no way resembles Bernardo Lanzetti). There's some stronger fusion tendencies, but still very unmistakably prog, with lots of great, creative passages and those classic analog synths we all come to love. Again, like their debut, there don't appear to be much of a Latin feel, and definitely no tango influences, so you can easily mistake them for a European band. The band broke up shortly thereafter, but they reunited in the early '80s, than again much more recently, around 2003 (with new members each time they reunited, with Osvaldo Favrot being the only original member). This is truly great prog worth having."