Los Jaivas - Alturas de Macchu Picchu (1981)

Jesus, what a masterpiece.  Totally beautiful symphonic progressive from Chile with heavily romantic feel and a ton of ethnic influence.  Los Jaivas were actually one of the more popular Chilean bands within their home country.  Though known mostly for folk and ethnic music, Alturas de Macchu Picchu is their venture into the realm of symphonic progressive rock.  The album is apparently inspired by the work of Chilean poet Pablo Neruda and some work that he wrote while in the Andes.  The result is utterly magnificent, and to this point the best album I have heard out of South America.  Musically, Los Jaivas is at once unique and, I think, extremely accessible to any fan of symphonic progressive.  Very melodic, with a heavily mysterious, dark, almost romantic atmosphere.  Dual keyboards, moogs and electric guitars are juxtaposed against exotic regional instruments and intriguing ethnic melodies unlike anything I've ever heard.  I'm a sucker for great vocalists, and this guy kills me.  The vocal melodies fit in with the folksy, ethnic atmosphere, and the guy carries an extremely rich and emotional tone across some extremely powerful melodic themes.  Very cool.

The 11 minute "La Poderosa Muerte" is the most overtly "progressive" and adventurous track on here.  The double moog workouts burn on this one, as the band moves fluidly from "rocking" sections into softer, folksy portions.  The rest of the songs vary in complexity.  "Amor Americano" and "Sube a Nacer Comnigo Hermano" are both composed around the extraordinary vocal parts, and carry an up-beat ethnic feel.  Extremely infectious.  "Aguila Sideral" is quieter and more contemplative, exploring the sound textures of the various regional instruments to great effect.  Overall, Alturas de Macchu Picchu is one of the first albums anyone should grab out of South America.  Extremely distinctive to its region of origin and undeservedly obscure, but surely an album that holds a much wider appeal. - Greg Northrup [July 2001]

Click Here for Tracklist and Lineup Info

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Jane - Between Heaven and Hell (1977)

As one of the most popular German rock bands of the 70s, I may have expected too much from Jane.  Between Heaven and Hell is cited by many as their finest album; an expansive conceptual work complete with a token side-long epic, soaring guitars and cascading organs in the finest prog rock tradition.  One enticing description given to me was "Pink Floyd playing in a huge cavern".  With all that said, I found the album pretty inconsistent.  One problem for me is that the band sounds a little too much like Pink Floyd here.  Unlike bands like Eloy or even Pulsar, who manage to take a Pink Floyd influence but still add a significant degree of complexity and individual personality, the imitation here is so extraordinarily self conscious and obvious that it gets tiresome.

The compositions here proceed in the typically dreary, slow and restrained manner you might expect.  Huge doses of reverb and echo coat everything, and the vocalist in particular annoys with his heavily accented Waters emulation.  Even Eloy (whose Manfred Wiezcorke plays keyboards here) managed to spice up the obviously Floyd inspired albums like Ocean with compositional intricacy and consistently fun "proggy" keyboard and synth work.  Here the synthesizers generally stick to huge "washing" backdrops, while the drums keep to the plodding 4/4 rhythm.  To be fair, guitarist Klaus Hess does the best job of living up to his heroes, as his solos often retain a sparkling beauty that belies the general boredom to be found elsewhere.
        The side-long title cut smacks of a poor man's "Echoes", particularly in regards to the bland vocal refrains.  Parts of the album, including a middle portion of the title track and the album closer "Your Circle", show the band trying to "rock" a little harder, which basically means the guitarist plays a rather simplistic chugging riff beneath the vocal line.  While it provides a nice change of pace in the context of "Between Heaven and Hell", it fails miserably on the poor "Your Circle", which seems like little more than a boring 70s hard rock tune. There are those out there who are intense devotees of both the band in general as well as this album, but I find myself sitting back and wondering what the big deal is here. - Greg Northrup [July 2002]