Seru Giran - Seru Giran (Reissue) (1978/2011)

Founded in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1978 - Disbanded in 1982 - Reunited briefly in 1992

Serú Girán is a progressive rock band starring Argentine Rock star Charly García, guitar player David Lebón, the young multi-instrumentalist Pedro Aznar, and the late drummer Oscar Moro. In the late '70s after Charly's symphonic rock project "La Máquina de Hacer Pajaros," which was a commercial failure, came to an end, Charly García moved to Brazil to start a new project and met guitar player and singer David Lebón. He decided to go back to Buenos Aires in search of musicians and "Serú Girán" was born and their eponymous debut was recorded in 1978. They played their first show and the audience were puzzled and disappointed as they were expecting music in the vein of "Sui Géneris." Afterwards, the press highly criticized the band. They continued playing to audiences and some warmed up to the new, more complex sound.

In 1979, they released the more accessible "La Grasa de las Capitales," which featured simpler compositions, and more direct and more aggressive lyrics rather than continue the more abstract poetry in the debut. This album was a success and put them to fame. Their third album "Bicicleta" is widely regarded as their musical peak and most mature album. It focused on adventurous songwriting, strong melodies, and continued those controversial political lyrics that almost caused the musicians to serve jail time. Serú Girán's popularity kept growing and they were dubbed "The Argentine Beatles."

"Peperina" was released in 1981 and was another commercial success with some of the best lyrics Serú Girán has ever written, but most of the songs in "Peperina" are ballads and the progressive rock sound has diminshed. In 1982, Pat Metheny invited band member Pedro Aznar to join his band, resulting in Pedro Aznar leaving and Serú Girán disbanding. Before Aznar left, the band played a farewell show that was recorded in the live album "No Llores por mí, Argentina" which included the popular title track. In 1992, the band reunited and recorded a new studio album "Seru '92" which sold extremely well, but its sound is very different and this album is often considered to be their weakest effort.