HARMONIUM

Like i said in my review of "Les Cinq Saisons", i was raise with Harmonium, being my father favorite band, i had no choice, i could not avoid their music. The first one, out of three, may not be the best but, it's still a excellent album. Musically it's closer to folk, à la Shawn Phillips, but still very unique. There are 6 outstanding tracks on this one plus 2 good tracks and the song "Pour un instant" witch i find it to comercial to my taste. If you don't understand french, it's a shame because the lyrics on this album are A+, Fiori is one of the best lyricist i know!! Two song in this album had a profound impact, lyrically, on me, "Attends-moi (wait for me)" & "Un musicien parmi tant d'autres (a musician out of others)".

The first one, "Attends-moi" deals with the time we put working to gain some kind of security but, you finally realised that you've spend so mutch time working, that in the end you have no more energy to do what you really whant to do. "If one day, it's too mutch for you, and you feel yourself broking down, you don't have any choice, need to survive or finishing it (attends-moi)"

The second one "Un musicien parmi tant d'autres", deals with the fact that you may have sucess one day but the next day somebody else will replace you. The song ends with those phrases "Where's been the people who had something to say? We've gave birth to someone, maybe we should listen to him".

"Aujourd'hui, je dis bonjour à la vie" is another one of my favorites. Just listen to the 12 strings guitar solo at the end, if this is not prog, than prog means nothing, a must!

The title track is very effective also, with a very good but simple 6 strings acoustic guitar solo in the middle of the song. the song end with a beatiful melancolic part including Fluglehorn & instrumental vocal sing with a lots of feeling by Fiori and Normandeau.

So, to conclude, a very good album but, not as good as the other 3, if we include the live album.