After wiping their songwriting slate clean with 1987's outtakes collection
Que País É Este, a significatly refreshed
Legião Urbana proceeded to make their fourth album, 1989's
As Quatro Estações (The Four Seasons), into arguably their most lasting musical monument. Indeed, even though it clearly lacked some of the genre-bending rough edges common to previous outings (mostly punk rock and electronic asides that often diluted as much as they diversified the contents),
As Quatro Estações achieved an unprecedented, streamlined cohesiveness that has better withstood the test of time. One would never guess, while listening to career-best tracks like "Pais e Filhos" and "Meninos e Meninas," that
Legião Urbana had just circumvented a potentially difficult loss with the departure of longtime bassist Renato Rocha. In fact, singer/songwriter
Renato Russo didn't even seem to notice, as he opened his formidable creative floodgates to pen a remarkable assortment of inspired singles -- pointed as always with reliably poetic and challenging lyrics, which, on this occasion seem deeply affected by religious imagery, both nuanced and blatant. The result is a seductive juggernaut of an album that feels utterly open-hearted and hopelessly secretive all at the same time. Jumping right in with a relaxed, confident pace, straightforward opener "Há Tempos" installs the album's heavily acoustic guitar drive, but it's the aforementioned "Pais e Filhos" (Parents and Sons) that attains the pantheon of Brazilian rock thanks to
Russo's poignant lyrics, featuring an assortment of ruminations about families, broken and intact, functional and fractured, spelled out with deliberate, quiet, and beautiful resignation and acceptance. By the time it arrives at its central message: "we must love one another as if there were no tomorrow...because in truth there is not,"
As Quatro Estações is in full, unstoppable swing, and
Legião Urbana is reaching for a new form of variety. Uniquely sung in English, "Feedback Song for a Dying Friend" offers viscous hard rock before unexpectedly descending into an Arabic belly dance. The wonderfully spare, wistful "Quando o Sol Bater na Janela do teu Quarto" (When the Sun Hits the Window of Your Room) is surely one of
Russo's most beguiling compositions, no matter that its acoustic guitars visibly quote
The Smiths'
Johnny Marr here and there. By comparison, the positively lush "Eu era um Lobisomem Juvenil" (I Was a Juvenile Wherewolf) wafts on and on in organ-driven, gothic exotica capped by
Russo's typically abstruse analysis of teen angst. Although equally open to speculation, "1965 (Duas Tribos)" (Two Tribes) kick-starts side two in decidedly rocking, upbeat fashion before the fan favorite "Monte Castelo" installs a far more contemplative mood with its lyrics drawn straight out of Corinthians (the well-known verse "If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, etc."). And so it goes...into the strangely hopeful and regretful-sounding "Maurício," onto the provocative, sexually ambiguous "Meninos e Meninas," through the purely poppy "Sete Cidades," and finally closing with the echo-laden "Se Fiquei Esperando Meu Amor Passar." All told, these are the songs that make
As Quatro Estações perhaps the archetype
Legião Urbana album. ~ Eduardo Rivadavia