Legiao Urbana - Dois (CD)

All Music Guide

Legião Urbana's second album simply titled Dois may well be its most accessible and, in retrospect, its most disposable, as well. Although the band's songwriting showed a greater consistency than its at times hesitant predecessor, their sense of creative direction seemed, if anything, even more scattered and insecure than before. Several numbers be it the lyrical "Daniel na Cova dos Leões," the muddled proUnion statement "Fábrica," or even the wonderfully bittersweet and regretful hit single "Tempo Perdido" were very guilty of wearing the band's English new wave influences quite glaringly on their sleeves; reshuffling and recombining instantly recognizable tricksofthetrade such as The Smiths' serpentine acoustic guitars, The Edge's syncopated, echoed electric shards, and The Banshees' syntheticsounding percussion, to fit their needs. So too the likes of "Acrilic on Canvas" and "Andrea Doria," whose gentle swing and softly stated minorkey melodies positively screamed The Cure and, again, U2, albeit in more understated fashion. Other tracks, notably the excellent "Quase sem Querer" and "Índios," fared far better at synthesizing these influences into a more recognizably Brazilian rock framework, but listeners would be fooling themselves if they didn't admit the lingering presence of those Smiths tricks. Sticking out like a sore thumb, "Metrópole" was a forgettable and uncomfortablesounding hard rocker that proved Legião was presently at a loss over how to incorporate their original punk roots into their present commercial position (solved by the following year's unselfconscious odds sods triumph of Que País é Este); "Central do Brasil" was nothing more than an introductory interlude for "Tempo Perdido"; and the politically charged lyrics of "Plantas em Baixo do Aquário" are inexplicably camouflaged under a layer of artrock pretension and dadaist delivery a rare instance of band leader Renato Russo avoiding, rather than embracing, controversy. He finally snaps out of it with "Música Urbana 2" (a spare acoustic guitar blues that allows his elastic and muscular voice its only major showcase on Dois), and the unfettered classic "Eduardo e Monica," with its distinctly Brazilian form of talking folkblues providing the ultimate canvas for Russo‘s storytelling abilities (here describing a romance between intellectual older woman and hapless young stud) it was a smash hit In the end, such was Legião's affinity with their fans, these fans' reciprocal devotion to the band's catchy songs and earnest delivery (or perhaps ignorance of the original sources that inspired them), and, let's be frank, the absence of too many significant challengers within their 80's generation, that most of the abovestated detractions mattered little in Legião's growing success.

- Eduardo Rivadavia, All Music Guide