Blind buys are always a crapshoot, and any criteria you use to make a judgement on a band or album will always only take you so far. Case in point: I read about the debut album from Spain’s Atila on the LaserCD website, and admit I was taken in by lines like “Originally released in 1975 by the obscure New Promotion label in an alleged tiny pressing of 100 copies the album has reached “monster” status among die-hard collectors worldwide, sometimes reaching the 1500€ tag.” So the idea of grabbing El Principio Del Fin (or The Beginning Of The End) in a remastered reissue with liner notes and a bonus CD of an alternate cut of the album sounded great. And…it’s fine? Also I could have just grabbed the digital version on Bandcamp for about $10? Oh well, it still sounds pretty good.

The album as a whole is a bit of a weird fish: it’s live, to start, and was supposed to serve more as a demo for the trio in order to secure a record deal. That tracks, as the other two releases in Atila’s catalog (they broke up in 1978) – Intencion and Reviure – are really strong, more composed progressive rock albums. El Principio Del Fin on the other hand is a single 29-minute jam, incorporating some obvious J.S. Bach and lengthy psychedelic jams that at times border on Hawkwind-like space rock. At this point the band was comprised of Eduardo Niebla on guitars, Joan Punyet on drums and keyboardist Francisco Ortega. No bass player for this performance, but it doesn’t take away from the overall sound of the performance; Ortega lays down some lower register chords and notes during some of the solos and the sound – while raw – is pretty good considering the circumstances of its recording.

Musically the track goes in a lot of different directions. There’s the aforementioned jammy space rock, but you also get some boogie elements and on the second track a killer solo from Niebla that has a LOT of Eddie Hazel/”Maggot Brain” DNA. El Principio Del Fin might not be an album I turn to on the regular, but as an introduction to Atila’s short discography it did its job in getting me to listen and check out the other two releases.

Not a whole lot to discuss here, so check it out if you’re hankering for some obscure psych/progressive jams.