STAND BY

"Stand By" clearly represents the pinnacle of the french band's craft, a perfect balance between synthetic hypnotic electronics and tortured Fripp-ian guitars. With their last 70s' album, HELDON finds at least the best achievement of the music they were searching. This frightening album could be easily described as the soundtrack to the descent into madness.

The 14 minutes title track opens the record with a terrorizing guitar sequence, setting immediately the athmosphere for the rest of the tune. Then come from the nothingness dark gloomy riffs which will take you in front of your deepest fears! You are locked in a cage and cannot escape. Mad guitars become angrier and angrier to let robotic synthetizers appear; the listener is in an unknown hypnotic place. The melody become once again heavy and agressive and enters the gates of delirium to end finally in the despair. Terrific!

In opposition, "Une Dröle de Journée" arrives as a light transition track. This song features really good kind of science fiction electronic jazz, with many changes in it. Unique, trippy and spacey. The last tune, "Bolero" is the longest piece of the disc and is a true electronic journey into your mind. It could easily have been a soundtrack for Dune. The overture is dark and mysterious, almost if there was an epic battle in space. Then hypnotic sequenced melodies appear; you are in a computer maze trying to find your way. Once you managed to escape, you discover another mysterious mystical soundscapes. A true meditative electronic place, which elvolves and takes you to immetarial spaces... Magic !

Very innovative and totally different from the electronic music acts of the time, "Stand By" is by far HELDON's most accessible and achieved work. A genuine masterpiece of electronic progressive rock. Dark and deep...

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