Abraxas by Santana (Vinyl record album review)

Record basics

Album name: Abraxas

Group name: Santana

Year: 1970

Number of discs: one

Label: Columbia Records

Collection: Brenner / Gessner

Buy it:

Amazon (Vinyl): $26.57

Amazon (CD): $6.79

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

I’ve never been a big Santana fan, presumably because had a song called Smooth that was not very good, and that was played around a million times in the late 1990s and early 2000s. I may have listened to this record once.

What I expected

Guitar riffs and psychedelic rock.

What it was actually like

It was jazzier in parts than I expected, and more of a hard rock record, though I’m not sure it’s entirely fair to distinguish “hard rock” from “psychedelic rock,” as it was plenty psychedelic too. Lots of parts were very enchanting, and I enjoyed listening to all of it, particularly Black Magic Woman, though Incident at Neshabur did get a bit boring at times.

Grade

4/5: would listen again