Today completely anonymous, LINHA GERAL was one of the most promising projects in modern Portuguese music and one of those that best managed to convey its vision to a studio recording without losing anything in the process.
Intervention music strongly rooted in an individual and communal identity of nationality, played and sung with exaltation as if it were acoustic punk formatted by Portuguese popular music, LINHA GERAL’s sound was compact and tense thanks to one of the most powerful rhythm sections that modern music in Portugal has ever known and of the excellent performers among whom CARLOS MANSO sang in an inflamed style in the manner of a crowd stirrer. If ZECA AFONSO and/or JOSÉ MÁRIO BRANCO formed a punk band in the aftermath of April 25, 74, they wouldn’t sound very different from LINHA GERAL.
The 8 songs from Linha Geral (Ama Romanta, 1989) were published on a cardboard cover with just the band’s logo stamped in red on the front and a photocopy of the handwritten lyrics inside. Its brief 20 minutes and peaks are marked by a constant urgency and anxiety and the music commits the feat of not giving up a single ounce of energy from its fundamental objective, focusing on the songs (short and magnificent, without exception, ending when they have to). ) in the discipline of the ensemble (which does not allow for flourishes or adornments) and in the admirable gear of the performers miles away from other bands of the time.
A precious and intense album that combines with equal enthusiasm optimism with incitement to revolt, exultant celebration with imminent doom. In Portuguese. Even today, the whiny generation of the 90s is still in their pockets with their kicks in English and the plastic fandom with which they imitate Anglo-Saxon by-products.
If only they could listen to this…
Album lineup: (Side 1): 1 – Porque os Outros; 2 – Dança de Sombras; 3 – Formas Estranhas (instrumental); 4 – Coro Jovem; (Side 2): 5 – Auto de Fé; 6 – Sinais do Tempo; 7 – Ousadia; 8 – Riscando os Céus (instrumental). (1)
FAMILY CAT/ FÓRUM SONS, 2002
(1) Collaboration by Nuno Rebelo (piano, guitar, sampler, choirs) and João Peste (choirs)
TRAINING
Carlos Manso (voice, guitars)
Fernando Soares (drums)
Tiago Lopes (guitars)
Pedro Alvim (bass)
DISCOGRAPHY
Linha Geral (LP, Ama Romanta, 1989)
Collections
Divergences (1986) – Hymn to Our Struggle
Portuguese Modern Music – 2nd Volume (1986) – Em Céu Aberto
COMMENTS
«We will turn fear into boldness / night into clear morning / fado into another destiny / terror into joy.»
Carlos Manso, LP
«The second album would never see the brightness of the skyscrapers, nor the “red, red” lights of the footlights. They stopped singing hymns of many struggles, perhaps because these struggles and battles were a task for others; perhaps because the “brutal days” made them “sail” until they came face to face with the “east winds” and then had the “daring” to take the “global project” forward.» Ricardo Alexandre/Ritual 3 (1991)
ON THE TRAIL OF…
Tiago Lopes recorded as The New Hard Noise Heavy Punk Cyber Speed Sonic Metal Punk Acid Sound and was part of Golpe de Estado. He has produced several bands (31, Jaguar, …) and is currently part of Electrónica Portugal with Rodrigo Leão.
Pedro Alvim was part of Pop Dell’Arte.
