Symphonic Prog
Mexico
Due to the lack of support from the Governments who see art as a way to get more taxes or private industry who prefer to invest in foreign acts, and the difficulties to reach the USA or British markets, it's unusual for a Latin American band to have a long and prolific career, but 31 years and 15 studio albums make of CAST from Mexico, one of the exceptions to this rule.
The story of CAST begins in 1978 when the first golden era of Progressive Rock was agonizing, when the Keyboardist Alfonso Vidales had the idea of creating a Rock band that blended Symphonic passages in order to keep his beloved Prog alive.
Very little information can be found about the first 16 years of their existence, until 1994 when "Landing in a Serious Mind" is self released, an album that presents us a serious Symphonic band with an original sound, maybe the only problem is the strong accent when singing in English.
1994 and 1995 are years of great activity for CAST, the band releases 5 albums, the already mentioned, "Sound of Imagination", "Third Call", "Endless Sounds" and "Four Aces", what makes me think this material was recorded during the previous years.
After two more albums and three years, the band signs with Musea for the release of "Imaginary Window" in 1999, an album that shows us a band that leaves behind the few Neo Prog leanings to embrace fully the Symphonic genre
The years keep passing and still in 2009, the band is preparing a new album that will be called "Cast Arte" and knowing the band is, we have CAST for several years more.
Being such a prolific band, it's hard to define a unique style, because the have evolved through the decades, performing Baroque, Medieval, Ethnic, Fusion, etc, but always keeping the unique sound in which we can here references from ELP, GENESIS and several more bands, but to be precise, I believe it's more the sound of the 70's rather than a direct influence from any band.
No Prog collection is complete without a least three or four albums of this Mexican band who defied time and won.
Iván Melgar Morey - Perú
ALBUMS:
1999 - IMAGINARY WINDOW
- Antonio Bringas / drums, percussion
- Francisco Hernandez / vocals, guitars
- Rodolfo Gonzalez / basses
- Dino Brassea / vocals, flute, acoustic guitar and bass
- Alfonso Vidales / keyboards
1. Moving Universe (8:46)
2. Alter Ego (4:38)
3. A Blossom In The Spring (4:03)
4. Dawn (5:06)
5. Simple Things (3:56)
6. Snail (2:49)
7. Around And Around (9:07)
8. Dessert Rainbow (2:12)
9. Cotton Dreams (6:33)
10. Imaginary Window (9:16)
11. Where's The Light (10:31)
Total Time: 66:57
Look!!
