Search - Santana :: Amigos

(3.5 stars) A last gasp before the hamster wheel abruptly st

finulanu | Here, there, and everywhere | 05/19/2008

(4 out of 5 stars)

"This represents the final throes of Santana's creative streak before he all but ran out, and chronologically speaking it's also his last pure studio album that's any good. Obviously the best song is the classic guitar solo "Europa (Earth's Cry Heaven's Smile)", a melodic, gorgeous, tear-jerking guitar solo. It takes the ideas presented on "Samba Pa' Ti", waaaay back from Abraxas, and brings them to their logical extent. As usual, it's Santana's playing alone that saves a lot of these songs - his lengthy solo on "Dance Sister Dance" lifts it from a mediocre but harmless MOR tune to something almost spiritual. But please, forget about the crappy "song half", and focus instead on the guitar solo. I do prefer the live version on Moonflower, though, since it shortens the crappy "song half" and removes the synthesized gloss accompanying the solo. The remaining five songs are considerably harder to recommend, though. "Gitano" is enjoyable but overlong salsa in Santana's usual style. "Let Me" is funky, but thin from a compositional standpoint. "Take Me With You" is flashy, but unimpressive. And then there are the two really bad songs. "Tell Me You are Tired" is the kind of thing that Journey may have been doing around the same time, and "Shine it On" (chosen, for inexplicable reasons, as a single - thankfully, it wasn't too big of a hit, peaking out in the lower regions of the Top 100) is disco morass. But the two classics and maybe "Gitano" are enough to bump the rating up. It definitely foreshadows the bad directions Santana would later take his music in, but taken as itself it's pretty good."