L'ARAIGNÉE-MAL

It's funny, you know...even the albums that I consider masterpieces usually have at least one weaker track or some sort of inconsistency...but that's not the case with " L'Araignée-Mal". It's concise and epic in the same time, homogeneous and diverse. Sound is beautiful, loaded with keyboards strings (string machines rather than mellotrons) and it sounds so...French.

The opening track, "Le photographe exorciste" is one of the scariest songs I ever heard. I consider myself lucky because I don't speak French, because if I do, I would probably wet my pants in fear. The rest of the album is less scary but not less beautiful. Strings, electric pianos, violins, guitars, vocals, everything seems to fit in music perfectly. I can't imagine a single note that could be improvement for the album. This is a masterpiece because all parts are beautiful, and well balanced, perfect ratio between furious soloing and meditative parts, between dreamy chords accompanied with vocals and keyboard passages that sound like a clarion call. This impression applies to all the tracks, including the bonus tracks.

There's an amount of fusion thrown in for a good measure, but this fusion parts are so...melted into the overall epic atmosphere that I wouldn't consider this record "jazzy" for a one second. If you can imagine finest TANGERINE DREAM's moments where you can fly thru the clouds, and add a good measure of CAMEL's dreamy "Snow Goose" you can -maybe- get the picture. Plus beautiful vocals (although some people don't like them) and, I must say, beautiful, wisely chosen palette of synthesizer sounds.

No weak moments. It's just too short journey. Journey through the skies and stars. Five stars.