DOUBLE CD - JUNE 2020
STEVE HACKETT (Genesis)
OCT 8, 2020
“I’ve now had the chance to listen to 'PEACE'. I enjoyed it and it has good musicianship as well a lot of atmosphere. I wish you all luck with the album and future projects.All the very best, Steve."
STREETCLIP
MARIO WOLSKI
JUL 29, 2020
“South America seems to me more and more to be a good place for music that doesn't care about mainstream and mass taste. For example, ARS PRO VITA come across the pond from Porto Alegre in Brazil. ´Peace´ is the name of their second album. It literally fills the evening, after all, the double CD contains 150 minutes of music. The duo ARS PRO VITA are the brothers Luis Fernando and Paulo José Venegas. Typically for Prog, of course, they reinforced themselves with different musicians.The best known name is probably Jon Camp (ex-RENAISSANCE, on bass in ´War Is Peace´ and ´Hero´). The album title and the simple cover, the bottom of a cartridge, indicate that this magnum opus deals with the development of the wars from the 1870s to the present day. According to the content, there is always a dangerous, threatening, frightening undertone. Speech samples, narrative passages, noises, every scene is described in detail. But the abundance of textual and musical material prohibits going into too much detail here. I also think everyone should discover this work for themselves.
Still, here are a few highlights. For example 'On Bibles And Cannons', which tells of the genocide of the North American natives, based on the shaft at the Wounded Knee in 1890. In contrast, a Chinese spoken text in 'A Handful Of Hope' tells of the horrors of the Japanese occupation of Nanjing in 1936/37.
But ARS PRO VITA go further, the Holocaust is thematized using a brothel in the Auschwitz extermination camp. One cannot imagine what must have happened in ´Block 24, First Floor´. The line “Love has left me” is an example of the horrors of the Third Reich. Despite the abundance of beautiful sound, ARS PRO VITA are far removed from any feel-good program from the SPOCK'S BEARD brand. ´Peace´ shakes, hurts, affects, for example when ´Drone´ tells about the everyday life of a drone pilot, for whom modern warfare hardly differs from a game with a controller and a joystick.
One can best compare it with VAN DER GRAAF GENERATOR, or the Italians AREA. In another place, PINK FLOYD or GENTLE GIANT come into play. In addition, a little early GENESIS, vocally you can often hear a certain closeness to the young Peter Gabriel, and modern serious music. In a few places, ARS PRO VITA get to the point too late, there a few lengths creep in. These are the places where the listener may be distracted but shouldn't be. But overall this album is a more appropriate preoccupation with the subject of war than I feel with SABATON. Precisely because the focus here is on horror and not any heroism. I always see tanks in Tiananmen Square, not on stage.
The final track in this form is not just a final gag, but leaves the listener pensive.”
Progressive Rock Fanatics
sTEPHEN CONRAD
"Like Precious Gems Strewn Upon a Brute Battle-Ground"
JUL 10, 2020
“The Waltzes -The waltz, that sublime dance, those graceful whirls and gentle-men, bowing, acknowledging the gowned belles, then going off only to return…Seeded through the carnage of brothels of Auschwitz, the trenches of World War Eternal, the children given guns and drugs so they can kill and continue and kill and continue…In This Bloody Scream. The jarring contrast between the magisterial sweeps of symphonic progressive music and the evil-incarnate of men in suits and power ties adding up their billions, the women leaning in and cutting up the pie baked in human flesh, armaments, mines, drones-
This Bloody Scream -
We are masters and mistresses of hate, murder, corruption, greed, lust, torture, and destruction. We humans have studied it, turned it inside out, identified it as hell, as ‘war is hell’, as endless insanity: War is Peace. The brothers of ARS PRO VITA (Art For Life) and their assembled cast of musicians and spokes-people have woven the kind of musical tapestry that thread by thread weaves the madness of war upon the loom of untold trillions of ready cash generated by some unholy force, and traced by the sinews and limbs of young women and men, grandmothers and grandfathers, widows, orphans, slowly or quickly losing what little they once may have had.
147 Minutes -
A very long time for the listener accustomed to less intense, more succinct fare, progressive or otherwise. Yet a very short time in the overall catalogue of horrors known to humanity if one considers the sweep of centuries, and the battles and conflicts and wars and engagements that have engulfed this blistered, frozen planet. 147 minutes of a masterpiece of progressive rock music, and excellent addition to ANY music collection, from around the globe, and with the maximum effect, challenging us with every note, every sound, every effect, to consider, to feel, to cringe, to LOOK and to HEAR what humans perpetrate upon humans.
Like a Cry from the Heart -
Perhaps you, like so many seem to do, worship the god of war, thrill to the battle march, the crisp flags fluttering, the soldiers in formation, the thin patriotism that thanks for their service and turns away when they return broken and scarred- and perhaps you can remain untouched, perhaps even offended by this stunning cry from the heart.
I cannot. -
The waltzes alone, strewn as they are in the mud and the blood, demand attention. For me, this is essential: a masterpiece of progressive rock music, an excellent addition to ANY music collection.”
