Canarios – Ciclos

Obviously it's a killer album. I wholeheartedly recommend it to all fans of 70's rock, especially those who love prog and symphonic.

Hello! Can anyone that owns this record please confirm the Runouts matrix?
Disc 1, Side 1: 87903-XC 1A△
Disc 1, Side 2: 87903-XC-B1
Disc 2, Side 1: 87904-XC A/2△
Disc 2, Side 2: 87904-XC-B2

I agree with the previous reviewer. There is so much going on here that it's hard to wrap your head around, but quite a bit of it is astonishing. Through headphones, it's a truly mindblowing experience. I find the Vivaldi elements to be downplayed in comparison to the inventive, full-on prog rock craziness.

Canarios started off as your typical pop/rock band from Spain. They seemed most known in this early phase for the 1968 single "Get On Your Knees". But by 1970 the group disappeared, because Teddy Bautista apparently had to do military service. By 1974 he returned to music and Canarios returned, in a drastically different musical direction, to full-on prog rock. Serious prog rock, to say the least. It's like if Los Bravos (the only Spanish band in the 1960s I know to have a hit in the States with "Black is Black") disappeared for a few years then come back as a full-on prog band (which never happened, of course). So what they do here is take on Vivaldi's The Four Seasons in totally full-blown prog rock context you can imagine. Kinda like ELP did for Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition. This group went hog wild on synths and Mellotron, with various vocals of varying quality, including an Indonesian-born soprano, while Teddy Bautista's vocals himself certainly aren't the strong points. If you're familiar with the original, you'll find many familiar themes, but doing silly things (that even most other prog groups would never think of) like going into a barbershop quartet thing and singing how it's a plastic Christmas and then going into some silly bluesy guitar playing is something totally out of the question on the original. One part had a flamenco feel reminding me a tad of Triana (although this came out before Triana released their first album). There are also more experimental passages too and so much going on that it needs several listens and full attention. This is the kind of thing that would get classical purists running for the hill, but then this was meant for prog rock fans, the type that enjoyed ELP's Pictures at an Exhibition. Really strange album from a group that started as a standard pop rock group, and this album is the big reason Canarios is even known at all in prog circles. If you fancy Vivaldi's work in a prog setting, this come recommended.