Holocausto - Aleluya (Puerto Rico, 1975)

I was really pleased to see that someone had ripped this one again, presumably it was bootlegged to CD and now a ninth or bonus track appears appended.  Previously a horrific rip was circulating, mono, and worse, but this new one seems to be a little monoish too suggesting the recording itself was poorly done.

In case you're not familiar with this band's one-off led by guitarist Jose Ramos (for what it's worth), this is classic progressive symphonic / electric guitar rock along the lines of so many other Hispanic masterpieces like Goma 14th April, Secta Sonica, Ibio, Atila Intention, perhaps most similar to the first with its combination of hard guitars and loud rock raucousness and lacking that annoying tendency to descend into Latin chord stereotypes (think E minor F G and back down again, the classic flamenco chords) which was a huge feature of for example Musica Urbana, Iceberg and Granada.

Note the classic prog brilliance of La Venida del Senor:





From Unencumbered Reviews:

Holocausto are an obscure Christian band from Puerto Rico who released this one very intriguing album. At times, there are bursts of complex and heavy Italian styled prog with guitars and keyboards raging over the crazy rhythms. At others, there's a bit of machismo Latin soul rock, that is obviously more song based. Overall, it reminds me somewhat of the Peruvian band Tarkus. It's a very rough recording, but the reckless abandon of youthful exuberance takes this one up a notch. Apparently the band had started to work on a remix for a possible reissue, but no recent word has surfaced that I could find anyway. I could see this easily going up a half point or more with repeated listens. Definitely recommended for a CD reissue.

This is another late era submission from The AC.  His notes to me were: "This Christian-themed underground Latin American rarity is an interesting blend of progressive, psychedelic, hard rock/proto metal and latin rock styles.  Heavy riffing, organ/keys, flute/sax and impassioned vocals battle it out over a set of relatively concise but atmospheric and thoughtfully constructed tracks, where the undeniably cool "aura" of the whole thing helps to make up for the somewhat primitive execution. Great cover art as well (both front and back). However, the sound here could really use a good cleaning up, as it's hard to even hear some of the more interesting instrumental details at times. It seems the band themselves were working on doing just that a few years back, but I'm not sure if this is still an ongoing effort. Lets hope so, because this one is definitely worth it."


Oh and good luck with your hurricane recovery down there guys when your billions of US dollars get spent for another brick in the wall.  I guess you'll just have to wait a few more years to get your electricity restored-- maybe by a new coal plant.  Or when "AOC" gets elected president.  As Pink Floyd taught us: "We don't need no education." And we've learned that lesson really well haven't we.