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Sunday, June 29, 2008

Aphrodite's Child - 666

While the concept albums was ruling the prog genre at the beginning of the 1970s, the globe was turning around and around as it lands in the outskirts of Greece that has one prog band that took the concept album into the layers of hell! That band of course is Aphrodite's Child. Formed in 1967, they started out as a greek psychedelic love-song band. They had some amazing songs like; It's Five O'Clock, End of the World, Let Me Love, Let Me Live, Spring, Summer Winter and Fall, and Rain and Tears. But all of that would change when Vangelis took the concept album into the obscure territory with this double concept album based on the Apocalpyse of St. John. 666 is an amazing masterpiece filled with heavy rocking guitar sounds from Silver Kouoluris, bizarre greek folk tales, ambient and atmospheric music into flameish annihilation!

The key tracks on 666 are the Pete Townshend guitar sounds with Babylon as Vangelis bangs the bass drums while Demis Roussos sings about the fallen empire of Babylon the great, The 5-minute epic heavy metal track on The Four Horsemen as Silver takes on the guitar solo into obscurity while Irene Papas makes her erotic X-rated porn sounds in the avant-garde climax of Infinity. And the space sounds of Aegean Sea and The Waking Beast allows the listener to go deep into pure heavy moods. And the climax of all epics, the 19-minute experiemental strange twist of All the Seats Were Occupied as the battle between good and evil fight for the final showdown with Heaven & Hell to duel it out.

Sadly, Aphrodite's Child's 666 was their final album in 1972. They called it quits as Vangelis enjoyed a mainstream success with film scores such as Chariots of Fire, the Sci-Fi cult classic Blade Runner, and the dreaded Oliver Stone pretentious tale of Alexander while Demis Roussos went a little more pop sound with We Shall Dance and From Soveniurs to Soveniurs by cross-dressing and singing like a greek version of Pavarotti. Concept album based on the apocalypse of hell? Pure fucking insanity right here!

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