EMILE JACOTEY

Opening with "Bêle, Bêle petite chèvre", a harder and more aggressive track than anything on Au-dela du Delire (if you don't count the sinister little marimba and vibraphone breaks), Emile Jacotey sees Ange in a typically passionate mood. That said, whilst the anger conveyed in the title track seems genuine (to my non-French speaking ears), the overwrought vocal delivery in the next two songs seems occasionally forced and self-conscious - always a risk when artists opt for a theatrical vocal style, but it's particularly distracting this time around, possibly because the musical backing is a bit simpler and less interesting than that in the album's predecessors.

Things pick up with Jour Apres Jour, which has more subdued vocals over a warm synth-laden track which reminded me, bizarrely, of Air's more gentle moments. In fact, the synthwork in Ode a Emile also reminded me of Air; perhaps if I listened to more French music I could trace the family tree of influences that led from 70s symphonic French prog to 90s/2000s electronica, just as you can sort of trace a path that leads from Gong's spaced-out Canterbury to today's trance music.

The four-part epic kicked off by Ego et Deus is, to be frank, nothing to write home about. It seems as though Ange are just going through the motions on the proggier parts of the album, whilst the more chanson-influenced tracks are where their heart really is; it's a shame they couldn't find a way to make the approaches work together in harmony this time around.