That cover screams 'bad trip' but, as history changes, so do drugs, and the music some people make under their influence as well; which means that in this record, five years after the memorable Paêbiru, Lula's feral freakouts with Zé Ramalho over the barren landscape of Northeast Brazil were already a distant memory. Côrtes mysticism and DIY folk ethos could still produce some interesting (however disparate) results, from the more traditional sertanejo register of "Lua Viva" to the Indian-inspired "Bahjan - Oração para Shiva" or "Nordeste Oriental" (which anticipates the whole beatific vibe he would go for eight years later, on Bom Shankar Bolenajh), but a lot of the music material tends to reach for some lazy musical templates of its time (with some hard-rock and country-rock moments being an immediate turnoff) which at best contribute nothing to enhance his occasional moments of inspiration (particularly "Dos Inimigos" falls sloppily short of being a classic), and at worst actively work to undermine whatever persuasiveness his semi-spoken-word preachings might still hold. Basically, it's as if he had gone from a commune in the sertão to live out a caipira version of rumspringa, which was probably a whole lot of fun; but, given the way he was headed here, I'd say it was high time to turn back to Vishnu.
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