Embrujo: Embrujo

Embrujo
Embrujo
Shadoks
2011-03-01

I’m grateful for these ’60s and ’70s re-releases from Shadoks, because it moves me to see an old thing loved and rescued from obscurity — one day we’ll die too. It’s a fact, though, that not all of them are great, some are uneven and some are curios. Embrujo, however, is pitch-perfect, late-’60s-sounding pop rock with the right amount of everything — flower power, drums, bravado, singing, folk influence, Amerindian flute. It’s not too hard, not too soft, but, like baby bear’s porridge, just right, an album with a beautiful and natural flow. It would be a fine thing to have more of this, but the band was Chilean and its career came to grief in the 1970s as the country’s political landscape curdled. This self-titled second album was released in 1971. The first album, Los Pajeros, came out a year earlier, while the band was still going by its original name, Kissing Spell.

RATING 8 / 10