L'ARAIGNÉE-MAL

Atoll's L'ARAIGNEE MAL is a good album, not a classic and slightly overrated. Another album that has the _sound like_ factor going on. Imagine the jamming parts from Caravan's Dabsong Conshirto, mixed with Arti E Mestieri's _Tilt_ and the french instrumental band Terpandre. The copy I had on CD from Musea Records out of France had to be mastered from a *good* sounding LP as you can clearly hear pops and noise at the beginning and end of each track. But, back to the music. There's also a very minimal Magma influence here, expecially in the vocal department. The presence of the violin shows up solely on L'Araignee Mal, which gives me the impression they were still trying to find their sound outside of another French bands like Ange since the vocal delivery is very similar. To me, ATOLL finally found their sound on the following _Tertio_(3rd album) and _Rock Puzzle_(4th album) which were comparable to French Canadian bands such as Morse Code and Pollen. This is an OK to Good album, but if you really need just one album from ATOLL, stick with _Tertio_(their 3rd). Make sure you get the remastered version from 2002 on Musea Records(re: Tertio).