EROS

Maybe, but shabby as Merci is, it's still more Zeuhl then this one from Dün. Dün is a French collective that sure pays tribute to Magma with their heavy rhythmical jazz-rock hybrid, but contrary to Magma, they keep things entirely instrumental and as such discarded the essential operatic spice that flavours Zeuhl. So in my ears this sits closer to Univers Zero then to Magma; a point of view only reinforced by the fact that songwriters, listening to names such as Jean Geeraerts and Pascal Vandenbulcke, can only be Belgians!

The entirely instrumental tracks are lightened up with lots of flutes and xylophone. It brings a lighter sound to this dense and intense type of music. It reminds me of the sound of Sinkadus, who created two albums that are somewhat similar, but better, in the second half of the 90's. The songwriting is very good throughout but rarely gets to a level of excellence. I miss a sense of purpose in them as they fail to build up to real greatness. Excellent themes have to share the same space with an excess of flutes and percussive instruments.

Also the arrangements and production could have been better: all tracks have a solid rhythmic base but are sometimes over-arranged with too many instruments soloing all at once. It is an issue that reminds me of Magma's MDK, another album suffering from trying too many things at once and drowning the essence in doing so. Let's say the virtuosity gets in the way of the message, or in other words, that the main story line got cluttered with too many side-plots. Given the high average rating it can only be a matter of taste obviously, but I really do think the focus on the musicianship and soloing is too high.

Eros is a great album, regardless whether you'd put it in Jazz-Rock, RIO or Zeuhl, but I would rather have liked to see Dün grow into real excellence then to have to do with just this one album. For fans of this album I would like to recommend other (superior) French bands such as Zao, Pseu, Eskaton, Nebelnest and Nil. 3.5 stars, potentially 4 if it has any staying power.

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