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Written in Folk Roots issue 157 & 160, 1996

GAITEIROS DE LISBOA
Invasões Bárbaras
Farol FAR 00007/95 (1995)

Now this is the stuff - four wild bagpipes, drum-battering, vibrant, soaring Mediterranean male vocals twisting and turning in powerful, tight harmony. This is a band in deep touch with its Portuguese traditions, but in no doubt how to make an album that reaches out and grabs.
Innovative arrangements, even an occasional non-tacky sound effect, making clear a contemporary sensibility but also making clear that this music doesn’t jump through fashionable hoops to gain your attention, nor is it some kind of tourist quaintness - it has all the energy and skill of what made the traditions of Ribatejo, Alentejo and Trás-os-Montes from which it derives so potent, and tossing in new compositions it rolls onward.
Invasões Bárbaras indeed.


© 1996 Andrew Cronshaw
 

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