Review Summary: Inferior to “Depois Do Fim” but quite interesting and inspiring. It’s more a solo effort than a band’s work.
“Sete Cidades” is the debut and only studio album of Mário Neto of Bacamarte that was released in 1999. The line up on the album is Mário Neto and Robério Molinari.
It’s impossible to talk about Neto and not talk about Bacamarte. They’re strictly linked. The band emerged in Rio de Janeiro in 1974. After almost ten years changing their line up and trying to get a contract, they released “Depois Do Fim” in 1983. Its founder was Neto who had, initially, the idea to mount an instrumental band. Bacamarte’s music came from a fusion of the band’s influences, the classical music studied since his childhood and The Beatles. This is the origin of sonority of the band. The success of the album consecrated Bacamarte in Europe and Japan. But, it did’t stop the ending of the band in 1984. But, in the 90’s, Neto released a solo work, this album “Sete Cidades” (“Seven Cities”).
Neto is a great guitarist with a classical formation. The great differential in Bacamarte is Neto’s guitar, which oscillates between climates, textures and soils with great tranquillity. His guitar style is unique. He plays his guitar only with fingers, without straws. He performs fast scales, complicated chords and lavish technique, being it classical, jazz or whatever the style is. He also changes from guitars, easily. In 1977, Bacamarte already had a considerable amount of music for the band. Neto got a performance in the global program Rock Concert. The visibility of the program presentation served to an unusual thing, the harassment suffered by Neto by the businessman of Genesis, who had toured some Brazilian cities and was about to lose his guitarist, Steve Hackett. The production of Genesis was deeply impressed with the amazing guitar technique of Neto and invited him to integrate Genesis. Although this sounded like a dream coming true, Mário choose to continue in Brazil, due to a request of his parents and because he was still a minor.
Comparing “Depois Do Fim” with “Sete Cidades”, “Depois Do Fim” is much more solid. In reality, “Depois Do Fim” is a masterpiece and “Sete Cidades” is far from that status. Still, it remains, for me, a very good album. Without the slightest doubt, one of the main problems is that Jane Duboc is no longer here. And that’s quite a loss. Despite Neto’s voice is quite appropriate to the music found on the album, which has its roots in the rich Brazilian music, more precisely in Rio Grande do Sul and the south of Brazil in general, he isn’t a great vocalist. Still, “Sete Cidades” offers fine melodies well played. Most of the songs are based on a structure of acoustic guitar and keyboards. The technique of the players is pretty good, especially of Neto, who plays almost all the instruments on this album, guitars, keyboards, bass, drums, percussion and flute. So, the album is high portrayed as a Neto multi-instrumental affair. The man is seriously a genius.
“Portais” is a great open that follows the same style of “Depois Do Fim”. It has a gentle intro of 2 minutes, a bombastic middle part and a string final part. I can see here strong influences of Italian bands, especially early PFM. “Ritual Da Felicidade” is a short, strange and extravagant track all made by percussions. It has some tribal sounds strongly influenced by Afro-Brazilian musical culture, which seems to be a little bit out of context on the album. “Filhos Do Sol” is another short track, but this time in a symphonic vein. It’s a very simple track sung by Neto. He has a good voice, and it has a nice flute section and a Mellotron based chorus really outstanding. “Espiritos Da Terra” represents a return to the more conventional symphonic territory. It’s almost an acoustic track, very soft and melodic with a spacey and ambient music. This is perhaps the best track on the album. “Mirante Das Estrelas” appears before on “Depois Do Fim” as a bonus track. It’s another excellent track with a nice guitar work by Neto, including an excellent synthesizer solo in the end in the style of Steve Howe. This is one of the centerpieces of the album. “Carta” is another short acoustic track with vocals by Neto. The song is agreeable but is slightly spoiled by the voice of Neto. “Canto Da Esfinge/Portais” is the lengthiest track on the album. It alternates between calm and frantic passages, showing great instrumental work. It’s amazing that only one man could have played almost all this alone. This track represents a nice ending to the album.
Conclusion: “Sete Cidades” is inferior to “Depois Do Fim”, but it’s quite interesting and in some parts very surprising. It has some great tracks like “Portais”, “Espiritos Da Terra”, “Mirante Das Estrelas” and “Canto Da Esfinge/Portais”. Nevertheless, the rest of the album doesn’t introduce anything new or any particularly surprising break through, in comparison to Bacamarte’s stunning album. The main leading instrument here, as is usual, is the tasteful guitar work by Neto. The man is really a very gifted guitarist and no wonder that someone in Genesis have been interested in him to substitute Hackett. The only real weak point is the vocal work. Despite not be so bad it isn’t really a great vocal work. So, all in all, “Sete Cidades” is a quieter album with very different musical objectives in relation to “Depois Do Fim”.
Music was my first love.
John Miles (Rebel)
