Tuesday, February 4, 2014

ZARPA - Herederos de un imperio (1984)

Archeology Work: Uncovering the Valencian Treasure

The childhood is a beautiful period in human life. One of many components of growing man is to dream about future life. I wasn’t exception, my thoughts and cogitations were wandering to the mysterious world of archeology. You know, I wanted to discover forgotten civilizations, lost cities in the brushwood of wild jungles, simply I was dreaming about the old ancient times. Unfortunately I am not an archeologist, but when I got long-awaited package on the beginning of this year, I was really excited. I felt like a kid when I took out the vinyl recording of the second Zarpa album called “Herederos de un imperio”. I felt like an archeologist with the treasure on the hands. This piece of heavy metal was recorded in 1984, in the years of splendor of the genre, now it has arrived as reissued edition (with different front cover by Valencian Turia Records as “Zarpa Especial 25 Aniversario, edicion limitada”) finally for such a maniac like me. To get original first pressing is, I guess, impossible today and it verges on a miracle. As compared to this edition, reissue has two bonus tracks, and in this case it is a very good idea, because the songs perfectly fit to the rest and fortunately they aren’t instrumentals or poor rehearsal demo efforts. What is more, I am not a guy who knows everything that Zapra recorded in the past, my first meeting was during listening to the compilation taken from the issue of Polish Hard Rocker (entitled “La Zarpa y el sable”). There I met one track called “Herederos de un imperio”…

… which now is the opener for the reviewed album. And to be honest, I can’t imagine better introduction for this Lp. This song is an absolute classic stuff which I can fish from the metal river, it is maintained in no fast tempo, rather mid-paced, with excellent slowing down. The underground production is as sharp as a razor that slashes the senses. The song sparkles with superb metal riffs (this melody…), vivid bass lines and long guitar leads played by Vicente Feijóo. The man and the mastermind, who is in the band since the very beginning. He is also Zarpa’s vocalist, maybe his way of singing isn’t as characteristic as for example Dickinson or Halford performance, but he has an ability to ‘adaptation’ to the each song on the album. I mean, he sings in Spanish (simply it perfectly fits to the entirety, and I can’t imagine this album in English), and I didn’t see or hear any vocals mistakes. Maybe in the third track called “Promesas” there are few words spoken in a robot speech, which rather annoys me and I treat it as a bad choice. Vicente shows many sides of emotions in mid tempo tracks, as well as in fast attacks and ballads. But also he is supported by two members Eduardo Feijóo (bass) and Javier Hervias (rhythm guitar), they put all the backing vocals which made great complement to all Vicente work.    

Of course this album doesn’t consist of the title killer only, there are also nine tracks which I can only worship till the rest of my life. And I guess the second Zarpa track is better than the previous one. Impossible? Yeah, “Tiempo de ira, tiempo de cambio” is like a volcano erupting many kinds of metal emotions, it’s broken a bit, without proper song structure with excellent Vicente leads (hats off to this musician…). Even if some melodic passages remind me of Iron Maiden tunes, I treat this song as a timeless heavy metal classic. Surprisingly not fast, with great melody of Vicente vocals lines… During listening to this, my thoughts peregrinate towards one beloved Savatage track called “24 Hours Ago”. But not because of cheap copy, in Spaniards I found the same feeling, the same passion of heavy metal, simply great! What a pity the band decided to silence the last Vicente solo… 

So… ten minutes passed, great “Promesas” enters the stage. It is a ballad enriched with some piano parts and hard guitars during chorus. And again, stunning guitar leads, multitude of vocal expression and only this robot drawback I mentioned earlier. The much lighter tunes (acoustic and with no hard guitars) are the base of another fine ballad “Voces en el universo” which opens side B of the vinyl release. However man cannot live by ballads alone, so it is a proper time to write something about faster and devastating shots: “Ojo por ojo” and “Reacciona”, these tracks are built by rather simple guitar work yet I find here another evidence to praise the album. For sure simplicity doesn’t mean inferior quality here and it is a good counterpoise to the ballads. On the end I’d like to point out of two bonus tracks, because they are important component of the album. First of them, mid-paced “El aguila cansada”, is like a relic from the end of 1970s, the song seems to be recorded much earlier than this album, it is played rather in the vein of old Judas Priest, but really good one, with very raw sound realization (like a rough diamond, believe me), just listen to the absolutely superb work of rhythm section supported (as always!) by guitar works. I am simply raptured by the sounds, musical vitality and frankness. The second bonus track “El que lleva la luz” is different. Vicente’s vocal lines have changed, and I easily can find similarities to nowadays way of singing. The composition is fast, but the sound of drums could be better. The rest is absolutely flawless.

To gather and sum all the things up, I have to write something about Iron Maiden, my first heavy metal band. This English outfit released “Powerslave” in 1984 which I really loved. This year is a releasing date of “Herederos de un imperio” too, but Spanish proposal is better. Much better! I think it gets out of this mentioned frankness and boundless metal joy during creating such memorable and 100% metal tunes. The additional points go for the underground production and Spanish language. What is interesting, this album grows with every new listen and during writing the review I couldn’t get off “Psicotronia”, another jewel founded in the kingdom of Zarpa. Well, I know that many things have to be checked at least once in every heavy metal supporter life. For sure one of them is this Spanish band. But remember one thing, you won’t find retro sounds here. There is no revival of heavy metal! This is the way how it should be played and executed. This is the credo of this music. Beyond doubt by this album Zarpa joins the pantheon of heavy metal gods in my collection. Now I can blame myself. Why the hell this album was completely unknown for me up to now? But better late than never.  And this is (metal) archeology… 

99/100
-Tlacaxipehualiztli

(previously written for Encyclopaedia Metallum, on March, 2013, now modified a bit)





No comments:

Post a Comment