Search - Santana :: Brothers

A GREAT INSTRUMENTAL ROCK ALBUM

Mike S | Front Royal,Virginia United States | 03/09/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"THIS A GREAT INSTRUMENTAL ROCK ALBUM WITH THE 3 SANTANAS IN TOP FORM. EVERY SONG IS GREAT WITH EXCELLENT BLISTERING GUITAR SOLOS AND RYTHYMS IN THE TRADEMARK SANTANA STYLE.THERE REALLY ISN'T A BAD SONG ON THIS CD AND IT'S NICE TO HEAR THE GUITARS SINGING INSTEAD OF VOICES. A MUST HAVE FOR THE CARLOS SANTANA FANS."

Brilliant traditional style Santana

G. Sawaged | Canada | 01/18/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Featuring Carlos and Jorge Santana and their nephew Carlos Hernandez, this is a highly underated album. It certainly deserves to be up there with Santana's best. Track #2 is written by Carlos Hernandez and he plays on it without the elder Santana's, and it is very impressive and shows him to be an emerging major talent in his own right. And one who is quite ready to carry on the Santana tradition. For any fan of Santana, this album is a must."

Great beginning and end

kireviewer | Sunnyvale, Ca United States | 10/17/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"IF YOU ARE A SUPERNATURAL FAN, YOU MIGHT NOT LIKE THIS.



This was released in 1994, before Santana would go on a 5 year recording break and then resurrect his career with Supernatural. It is 52 minutes long and the sound quality is excellent. Except for one track, this is an instrumental CD.



The CD features Carlos Santana, his brother Jorge and their nephew Carlos Hernandez. Jorge was in Malo in the seventies. Malo sounded much like Santana, but was more instrumental oriented.



The best stuff on this CD is driven by Jorge Santana. The CD starts out great and ends great. It is powerful, slightly hard latin rock. There is a little discordant jazz mixed in. It is similar to the sound of Caravanserai, Welcome and Borbarella days.



The CD isn't perfect. After the first track, there are several tracks that are almost boring. It is the same kind of music that Santana had been putting out for years and was getting a little tired. It is that soft latin tinged instrumental. It was good at one point, such as on the beginning of Europa, but it is getting a little stale.



Also, Carlos Hernandez is no where close to the talent of the Santana Brothers. He resorts to those cheap guitar tricks of the eighties and nineties, pioneered by Eddie Van Halen, but ruined by every guitar hack to come out of the last part of the century.



This CD came in the midnineties, when Santana was getting back on track. After being a blockbuster pioneering Latin act in the late sixties/early seventies, Santana switched to jazz. I think he was at his creative best, but it became his least popular period. In the late seventies and all through the eighties, Santana moved to pop. Some of the albums during this time were just horrible, athough there were a few that he did as a solo act were OK. In 1990, he started getting back on track with Spirits Dancing in the Dark, the fantastic Malagro and this CD. But, he could not regain his popularity, as the public had forgotten who he was. then, in 1999, he came out with his duet smash, Supernatural. Unfortunately, he tried to repeat the duet formula on his next two CD's and fell flat. In those cases, all of the musicians just phoned in their work."