Last album of the band’s first incarnation, it’s a soaring and vibrant, mostly instrumental, selection from a group of musicians trying to look tight as ever but, underneath the surface, torn apart by a life of excesses. The opening jam immediately exploits a fierce guitar shredding duel between Carlos and the new addition, twin-lead guitarist kid Neal Schon, which continues in the subsequent track “No one to depend on”, that really is in some sort the heaviest track up to that time by Santana, resulting in a ballsy thick hard rocking pounder acting as a forerunner to the wilder Journey’s ‘mark 1’ tracks to come. “Taboo” is a soulful episode characterized by a liquid atmosphere above a bluesy structure that just can have inspired the similar B.B. King’s “Ghetto woman” released a few months later that same year. Carlos’ mastery and gusto enlight the trademark number “Toussaint l’Overture”, where the guitar runs sumptuously on an infectious latin groove, probably one of the most heartfelt lead interventations ever operated on record by the band leader. Side 2 opens up with the fast soul of “Everybody’s everything” with a blasting prominent horn section and a ferocious solo by the new kid Neal acting like a beast looking for its tamer. The album passes to more latin territories from the salsa exercise of “Guajira” to the south american tinged tribal extravaganza of “Jungle strut”, pausing on the brazilian ballad “Everybody’s coming my way” (constructed on the same melody line of “Samba pa ti”) and concluding on a high with the incessant rumba of “Para los rumberos”. I think this is the less succeeded lp from the Santana’s first line-up, lacking both the genuine excitement of the first release and the imaginative songwriting of “Abraxas”, but it’s still a top notch statement from a terrific jaw-dropping bunch of guys that had built one of the best musical machines of all time.
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