Index - Identidade

Year of Release: 2004
Label: Musea
Catalog Number: FGBG 4544.AR
Format: CD
Total Time: 51:38:00

Third album of instrumental symphonic delights from our Brazilian friends. Only Junior and Kury remain from the band's self titled debut. Jones Junior being a founding member of Quaterna Réquiem still introduces a lot of authentic elements into the Index music. Especially the inclusion of the flute does help a great deal to balance the Brazilian feel. I do feel however that the sound of the bass is too much present in the mix. Especially "Maximus" suffers from too much bass.

With their second album Liber Secundus, Index also introduced vocals, but decided to go back to the all instrumental format with this new album. A song like "Suite Angelus" in a way comes close to the kind of music Belgian band Quies performed in the beginning of the eighties also flirting with bands such as Finch and Focus. The second part of this epic also contains some Ekseption feel as it gets close to classical music at times. With "Fogos De Santelmo" again the sound of the bass is mixed way upfront whilst Jones Junior delivers a jazzy experimental approach accompanied by similar drumming. Ronaldo's bass playing gets close to the Rickenbacker quality of Chris Squire during "Coracoes Do Mundo." Pity the arrangements often become a little sloppy resulting in your attention drifting away. Church organ and acoustic guitar introduce "Index II," which not only is the longest track on this album but also the most diverse, combining different atmospheres all chuckled into one. The sound of the synths slightly evokes a Canterbury feel, whilst some of the guitarsolos I don't really follow. It often sounds like the guitar is missing the plot altogether, trying to steer the music into a different direction than that which the rest of the band is mapping out. So right at the very end, I sit in the middle of a huge pile of doubts. Some ideas are pretty good whilst others don't really fit or match the rest of the arrangement. To my ears it often sounds like two completely different parts of music being glued together anyway. I have listened several times to this album and still feel the same way, so I don't really know where Index should go from here. They tried their luck at a vocal output which didn't work and now they have returned to the all instrumental format which also doesn't seem to fully work out. As long as the musicians feel happy that's the main concern, but if that was the case then why bother releasing CDs? So I know for a definite fact that Index wants to be taken seriously and also wants to deliver albums they can really be proud of. As it stands Identidade sounds more like a bunch of ideas put onto CD before starting the actual recording of the album. The album misses soul, misses depth, misses spirit. It's in that respect that I have to say that I'm rather dissapointed with it all.

Tracklisting:
Vulcano (7:26) / Maximus (3:50) / Suite Angelus (11:19) / Coracoes Do Mundo - Intro (1:02) / Fogos De Sntelmo (6:35) / Coracoes Do Mundo (8:22) / Index II (13:06)

Musicians:
Jones Junior - acoustic and electric guitar, flute
Otaviano Kury - Hammond organ, piano, synthesizers
Ronaldo Schenato - bass
Leonardo Reis - drums, percussion

Discography:
Index (1999)
Liber Secundus (2001)
Identidade (2004)

Index Ao Vivo (DVD) (2008)

Genre: Symphonic Prog

Origin BR

Added: February 28th 2005
Reviewer: John "Bobo" Bollenberg

Artist website: www.index.mus.br
Hits: 2615
Language: english