The Best Of ERA (2008) Re-up

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The Best Of ERA (2008) Re-up

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Era History:

One day I heard "Ameno" and since then nothing has been the same. I entered my own world of mysticism, spirits and magic. The years passed, the youthful fascinations also did but the first Era's albums don't make me bored. They are still very important for me though I listen to them very rarely.

The whole history begins in 1998 when we could hear "Ameno" or "Mother" the first time. Soon afterwards Era's composer, Eric Levi, with six dancers visited some places to promote his first album. That perfect album was succeeded and was sold in about 5 million copies. Legends mixed with reality, rock music with choir, amazing atmosphere - that all took away hearts from people and "Ameno" didn't leave the top place in the charts.

The second album, called just "Era 2", turned out to be - at least in my case - a total surprise. Masterly works can't be repeated and Eric Levi confirmed that opinion. "Era 2" didn't reach the level of the first album… No, I should have expressed it in the other way: this is simply different music, almost devoid of darkness but fortunately, not of mystery. The mysticism remains though its level is not very high. That's why despite of extremely silent promotion in Poland "Era 2" was staying in my ears continuously all summer 2000.

Again, "Era 2" seemed to be an ideal complement of "Era" and I thought that Eric Levi's artistic activity with this theme would end. Unfortunately it didn't. While listening to the first two Era's albums sung in pseudo-Latin I was only under impression that it's from church - "The mass" instead refers to religion not only in its title, but the lyrics are also taken from masses. Earlier I didn't notice a mixture of modern sounds and singing in chorus, now I feel it painfully. I was under impression of perfection before "The mass", but I hear almost nothing special in compositions of this album. Definitely the composer failed to create a good stuff.

We hadn't to wait long for "The very best of". At the moment I'm probably wasting my fingers… Firstly, when someone doesn't have a big musical output, releasing 'the best of' shows either serious composer indisposition or care of wallet content. Secondly, Eric Levi should have been guided by listeners' taste, not his own one. Where is "Impera" that is listened preferably?

Many of us thought that Eric Levi's musical imagination failed him seeing that he had to release "the best of" album with no new stuff. But we've just had a surprise. There is a new Era album released, it's called "Reborn" and introduces some new atmosphere. There's a mix that is bigger than on "The Mass": sounds from original Era with choir, Arabian vocals and disco rhythm. I'm disappointed again.

In 2009, Levi decided to refresh distinguished works of classical music and released an album titled "Classics". It still looks as if the composer lacked ideas for writing music completely from scratch. He still converts themes of the first albums and religious and classical songs. Climate of the first disc, which charmed with mystery and magic, on the album "Classics" is no longer present at all. On the other hand a classical compositions are beautiful in themselves, so attempts to perform modern interpretations of them are usually not successful.

Despite of all my complaining there's no lack of Era's fans in the world. The times when I thought I am the only person who loves music of that kind passed. There are a lot of people who understand the magic of Era. It involves religion mainly and that is why there's the most likely to meet an Era's fan in countries of South America or in Russia. However, during the years of keeping this website, I got to know a lot of people from very different countries of the world. Era uses the universal language. The message gets to everybody though different listeners receive it extremely variously. Personally I think about the first Era's album almost as a bible.

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The Best Of ERA (2008) Re-up

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