"A Quest for Prog" is a series of 50 Progressive Rock reviews to be written over a year. The band selection is taken from the book in the first post on this blog. And the albums I am reviewing is based on the highest user ratings for each band on Progarchives.com.
Cast – Third Call (1994)
Produced by Cast
Dino Brassea – vocals
Francisco Hernandez Reyes – Guitars
Luis Alfonso Vidales – Keyboards
Antonio Bringas – Drums and percussion
Rodolfo Gonzalez Quiroz - Bass
Track listing:
01. Where The Wind Blows
02. Sleeping Fortress
03. Time In Space
04. Door Of The World
05. Static Dreams
06. I'm Waiting
07. Veto Ben
08. House By The Forest
Released in 1994 "Third Call" was the third album by Mexican band Cast. Not to be confused with the John Powers band Cast formed in 1978 but for years seemed to be playing for their own enjoyment and not making a career out music. In the early 90’s the band built Cast Studios in Luis Alfonso Vidales home and started releasing album independently.
From what I have been able to find it appears that this album comes from two sets of recordings five years apart. With one in 1989 and the other in 1994. Although I couldn’t find notes as to which songs were from which sessions sonically it seems as though the first four songs are the 1994 recordings and the second four songs are the 1989 recordings.
The first song on the album is “Where The Wind Blows”. The track has a solid, if not simple, drum and bass backing with what seems to be a lot of keyboards. The keyboards reminded me of Sammy Hagar era Van Halen with a touch of Dream Theater. I’ve got to say that the song for me is a fairly uninteresting.
Following on is “Sleeping Fortress” which is slower than “WTWB” and is drenched in Keyboards. From what I have read Luis Alfonso Vidales seems to be the leader of the band and this song seems to back it up. The song has a waltz feel and reminded me of 80’s television incidental music. The first part of the track is quite silly and hard to take remotely seriously. But later on it does pick up in the second half which adds some interest. Some but not allot.
The third song is “Time In Space”. Fans of the Scorpions or maybe Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals might get a kick out of this one. It has a bit more of a groove than the first two songs but is still a fairly dull.
The last of the 1994 recordings is “Door Of The World”. This song is less straightforward than the previous three and has a nice jazzy feel at the start. The song moves around a bit and has some interesting instrumentation but I really got nothing from these 1994 recordings.
The 1989 recordings begin with “Static Dreams” which was a bit of a surprise as it sounded like Dragonforce at the start. The song moves a lot more and has more interesting instrumentation. The vocals I’m not a fan of but the instrumentation is interesting. A step up from the 1994 recordings in structure but not in fidelity.
“I'm Waiting” follows on and is pretty much a Soft Rock radio song. The drumming is quite interesting on this track but there are some pretty awful high pitch vocals. Not for me.
“Veto Ben”, the only instrumental piece on the album, is next. This one reminded me of Emerson, Lake & Palmer in that it was very much a showcase for the Keyboards (a re-occurring here) with the mood changing from dark to jaunty in the course of the song. This would have to be my favourite song on the album. Pretty fun.
Somehow a year or two ago I ended up watching some Air Supply TV special of some theatre concert. It was really bad and hilarious at the same time with some old guys dressing like they were 20 and trying to rock out. That image was the first thing that came to mind when listening to the last song on this album “House By The Forest”. It's a soft rock song being played like a bunch of old guys who think they are letting loose. As you can guess I didn’t think much of this song.
This album was a struggle for me to get through. The first listen was ok but the second was some kind low level torture. I sure for some people this kind of music is great but for me there is maybe one song that really did anything for me.
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