Crucis: Crucis and Los Delirios del Mariscal (1976/’77)

It’s so interesting to note that Latin American has had their share of prog rock bands. In Mexico you have Iconoclasta, Delirium (not to be confused with the ’70s Italian prog band), Nobilis Factum, Códice, and one of the more popular bands, Cast. In Brazil you have latter-day Os Mutantes (post-Rita Lee), O Terço, Sagrado Coração da Terra, Bacamarte, and many more. Then you have Argentina, in which you have groups like Invisible, Espiritu, Ave Rock, Pablo “El Enterrador”, and the band I’m focusing on here, Crucis.

This Buenos Aires based band is regarded as one of Argentina’s best prog bands. The music circled around keyboardist Anibal Kerpel (who plays Mini Moog, Hammond organ, Hohner Clavinet, electric piano, and string synths) and guitarist Pino Marrone, with bassist Gustavo Montesano, and Uruguayan-born drummer Gonzalo Farrugia. What’s really surprising about the music of Crucis is you won’t find any Latin/Spanish/South American (or tango, for that matter, which is native to Argentina) influences in any of their music, as close to Latin here is the vocals, which are in Spanish. Musically they’re much closer to such Dutch acts as Focus or Finch, with some Pink Floyd and Camel thrown in. Their self-entitled debut, from 1976, shows what this band was capable of. The opening cut, “Todo Tiempo Posible” demonstrates this, with the opening organ. There are some vocals here, as well as some quirky, complex prog passages that would keep the prog fans happy. “Mes” shows a bit heavier-edge of the band, with an almost Deep Purple or Atomic Rooster feel, especially when Anibal Kerpel tries to imitate the style of Jon Lord or Vincent Crane on his organ. “Irónico Ser” also shows a more hard-edge end of the band as well, without the Deep Purple and Atomic Rooster influences. And unlike “Mes” this one has vocals.

I have always felt the album’s high point is “Determinados Espejos”, a totally killer and intense instrumental piece that really demonstrates the talents of Kerpel and Marrone. In fact, in part of this cut, both of them do a little guitar/Moog contest, where Kerpel would plays some notes on his Moog and then Marrone would copy what he did on his guitar. The one thing I forgot to mention is the drummer, Gonzalo Farrugia was quite a capable drummer.

For their second, and final album, Los Delirios del Mariscal (recorded late in 1976 and released at the beginning of ’77) they decided to drop nearly all the vocals and instead concentrate on instrumentals, which was always the band’s strong-point. The album was recorded at RCA Studios (presumable in Buenos Aires), but mixed at Miami’s infamous Criteria Studios (yes, the same studio the Bee Gees and the Eagles recorded at). This time around, while little Deep Purple/Atomic Rooster influences there were on their debut, was totally thrown out for this album, with perhaps a more fusion-bent on some of the cuts. The album starts off with “No Me Separen de Mî”, which is the only cut on this album with vocals. The vocal passages tend to remind me of such Italian prog bands as PFM or perhaps Corte dei Miracoli. The title track is perhaps a bit more spacy than what the band usually does, bringing to mind Finch’s Beyond Expression, dominated by Anibal Kerpel’s spacy string synth, and Pino Marrone’s guitar playing, which brings to mind Jan Akkerman or Joop van Nimwegen. The last two cuts show the band at their most intense, you have Crucis at their most intense, you have the somewhat more fusion-oriented “Pollo Frito” and the completely-over-the-top “Abismo Terrenal”. The latter is also the longest cut, at 12:30 minutes, the bands really goes in to some very intense passages, where Pino Marrone goes overboard on his guitar. I think you’ll definately fall for this piece if you enjoyed the more intense moments of Finch’s Glory of the Inner Force.

This is some truly great music, and I am actually surprised how well-produced their both albums are, since I’ve often expected lousy productions from Latin American prog albums (like Mexico’s Iconoclasta who made excellent music, but the production was often amateur-ish). And to make life easier on you, if you want to hear both of Crucis’ albums, get Cronología (1992, later spelled Kronología in 1995) CD, which crams both of their albums on one CD (no songs omitted, thankfully). That means you can decide which is the better album. No doubt about it, these two albums are some of the best prog I’ve heard from Latin America, and given this is my first try at Argentine prog, it probably wouldn’t be the last either.
– Anibal Kerpel: organ, Mini Moog synthesizer, Solina string synth, Hohner Clavinet, Fender Rhodes electric piano, vocals
– Pino Marrone: guitar
– Gustavo Montesano: bass, vocals
– Gonzalo Farrugia: drums, percussion.