Review by Zappa88 (Chris Henne)
[Prog Reviewer ]
Posted 2:16:43 PM EST, 4/16/2007

I think this was the album that got me started with looking into modern progressive rock bands. I'm not positive about that fact, but when I look back on this album now I wouldn't doubt it one bit. Just a little bit of history on how I ended up discovering a French band with no previous albums to start my modern progressive rock journey, The Black Noodle Project was formed in the French capital and media-hub of Paris, where any album can explode onto the market quickly. The rest is history, and here I sit writing about it.

One rumor that I would like to end right now is the rumor that this band is a Pink Floyd wanna-be. Sure their major influence is Pink Floyd, but the above statement is completely not true, my friends. I suppose they could be the same in the sense the Roger Waters of Pink Floyd and Jeremie Grima both write their songs with a raw passion that can only be surfaced through musical expression, but the music can obviously tell the difference between the two bands. Black Noodle Project plays every note with an unbridled emotion and sings every word with a sense of passion that Pink Floyd sometimes managed to grow cold on over the years.

Now onto the music, shall we? The concept of the album, which I just learned after listens, is how to let go of a broken relationship. Even though their are a few heavier passages, the album is mainly layered with spacey textures to give the feeling of someone's deepest reaches of depression. I suppose the soaring lead guitar and mellow piano textures are responsible, although the saxophone on "Do It Alone" is an amazing touch. The first thing that broke the Pink Floyd wanna-be connection in my mind was the heavy percussions mixed with subtle keyboards, while Pink Floyd tends to go vice-versa.

"Time Has Passed" opens the album with some wind blowing and clocks chiming, and then a tribal drum beat and subtle acoustic guitar set the tone for would will be the style of music throughout the whole album. Once the song starts to come to life, that soaring lead guitar that I was talking about rips into the atmosphere and drenches the remaining sounds with some beautiful riffs. The vocals are slightly accented,, and that just adds to the romanticism that Grima was trying to achieve on this album. "Do It Alone" starts off with the sounds of rain pouring and thunder in the distance, but the effects give way to some a cappella vocals before the piano tones flood the speakers. Like I said before, the saxophone is an amazing touch, and this is the only song on the album where it can be heard. Definitely something to check out, meaning the saxophone solo with tribal drum beats.

The next track is their heaviest song by far. "Where Everything Is Dark" starts out very slowly, and builds up with some very suspenseful atmospheres created by the echoing vocals and subtle riffs, but the explodes into a machine of guitar fueled aggression, however the piano manages to keep the song in touch with the melancholy mood of the album. Once again, the vocals are a winner for me. The accented Francophone English compliments the mood of the music so well. This where the heavy percussion comes into play on the album as well, it provides the backbone for some almost techno-sounding lead guitar solos. Their next song, "Face The Truth", takes all of the edge right out of the previous song and replaces it with subtle beauty. A reviewer on another website had compared the beginning to Eric Carmen's "All By Myself", and I do not disagree with her, although unlike "All By Myself", "Face The Truth" never hits a musical peak where all of the instruments click together. Not that that is a bad thing, however. This truly is a perfect ballad.

"Drops In The Ocean" is another mellow, ballad-esque song, with a few guitar solos here and there, one soft and one aggressive. This song can almost be compared to a 20-minute epic in the sense that instruments each enter the song individually after a certain period of time. For example, the song begins with some really spacey keyboards that create the atmosphere, and the vocals come in alongside the strumming guitar. The tension starts to mount, and then the sound explodes and the bass and drums get heavier and heavier. The instrumental "Interlude" starts off with the sound of a baby crying and then some very classy piano playing takes over, while the guitar stays in the background for a while. The piano starts to overtake the guitar with around a minute left, and creates a magnificent solo that blends the guitar's raw power with the piano's cultured and cured tones. The ending of "Interlude" leads into "Where Are U?", which opens up with some more strumming guitar and vocals, but the song is different because of the added use of the cello in the chorus. The song's title may suggest that it is a very depressing, yet musically amazing song. With the accented voice pounding out lyrics such as "6 feet underground, where my heart was cold", this just may be the most depressing song that you will ever hear.

"Somewhere Between Here And There" is one of the only songs on the album that really creates a rich sound, and by that I mean all of the instruments working in harmony. Usually the instruments follow one another into a chorus, but this time they play in synchronized time which gives the song a very full sound, rather than the layered sound from the other tracks. Some excellent distorted keys open up this track, and the drum beats are at their most powerful. "Lost (I Miss You)" is a very weird track in the sense that they seem very happy and upbeat while singing, but the lyrics are incredibly tragic and gloomy. The song opens with the sounds of a beating heart, and then the track is dominated by some incredible work on the cello. "Disappeared" is a song that is literally built on percussion. For the first time on the album, the drums create the atmosphere and the guitar follows it. Some more sad vocals and spacey background keyboards lead into a blazing guitar ending. The final song, "She Prefers her Dreams", almost hits the 10 minute mark, and is the longest song on the album. During the song, the band has systematic explosions of sound that is very out of character for the group, but is a welcome change. The ending of this song really starts with around 3:30 left in the song, and just seems to keep building up and flowing on and on, and when it does eventually end all you want to do is play the CD over again from the top.

It's very hard to sum up this album, because most of everything has been touched upon already. I highly recommend this album to fans of Pink Floyd, Landberk and Shadowland. This band may be an acquired taste, but for those of you wanting some excellently engineered space rock, this is the band for you!

5 stars, no hesitation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm a bigger fan of my reviews for "Absolutely Free" or "Weasels Ripped My Flesh", but I'm told this was my best so enjoy.

Ok...where to start? mmm...let’s start with the fact that Meshuggah used to be the one band I thought I would never get into and, to be honest, it’s quite logical why. I mean... heaviness just for the sake of heaviness, no melodies, the singing (or should I say screaming?) the cold, soulless feelings to it, really, how can somebody even like this band? Well... look at me now...

This is the first album (or EP to be more specific) from this guys I have, I thought it would be a good place to start. Why?... I don’t know, I guess cause I’m like the biggest epic fan ever and thought I should give this 21 minutes song a try, cause if I didn’t like this, then I could easily move on to something else, knowing I had listened to the "best" Meshuggah song. Also, and this is kind of strange, I read the lyrics before I even heard the song, just cause I was so intrigued of it´s name… “I”. “One has to have a lot of balls, or be reeeeally pretentious to name an epic this way” I thought, “I´ll check out the lyrics, cause for sure they can´t be that good”. Guess what, the lyrics are genius! Chaotic but in an almost poetry-like way… awesome!!! And then I heard not one, not two, but a lot of people praising that this was THE BEST METAL SONG EVER… well now I have to listen to it. So, I got “I”, almost sure I was making a huge mistake. Only once did I have this feeling before: when I bought “In the court of the Crimson King”, and it turned out to be my favorite album ever. Man do I like to be wrong sometimes!!!

This song, this monster, is like the most brutal experience ever. I can’t say this was love at first sight. In fact, I got a headache the first time I listened to it, but I immediately knew there was something to it, something special. So I kept listening to it, and the more I listened to it, the more I liked it. By the fourth time I had no doubts, this is a work of genius! There is no weak spot, no filler what so ever, just 21 minutes of pure brilliance. And there are some parts here and there that are just too good, like the whole 10th minute for example, with Kidman chanting “Shifting from worlds from chaos, to chaos, to chaos” and then the best part of the whole song… Meshuggah plays in 4/4!!! The result? One of metals best riffs ever, certainly one of it’s heaviest. By far, the best part of the song, yet, after this, it doesn’t drag or get dull, it continues truly great, until the big finale where Kidman delivers that final shout: “I” and the creepy outro begins…

I can now agree, this is one of metal best songs. I think it’s important to remark the importance of the lyrics, which I noticed nobody really does. They match the music perfectly, and although shouting might not be the best singing technique, it fits the music and concept of the lyrics like a glow. 5/5; a masterpiece. Meshuggah truly are “crazy”.

 

No, you much prefer post analyzing, then destroying with a pwn of all pwns.

 

Ivan, thats an exhausting review man.

DUFFARD, PASCAL — Dieu Est Fou
Review by Logan

— First review of this album —

God, this is insane! Well, not really, but it is zany.

No review of this album would be complete without discourse on the lyrical themes of this irreverently titled French album ("God is Insane"). Unfortunately, French is not my lingua franca, and so, perhaps, an analysis of the music shall suffice (well, it won't, but...) However, not being a musicologist, and being rather tone deaf, I shall not be able to offer much in the way of learned observations of the music. Oh, I could bluff my way through it, focusing on tone, rhythm, harmony, and texture to make myself seem semi-intelligent, but instead I shall vaguely focus on my vague impressions, tangential commentary, and share my love of the music. Anyway, if music is the universal language, and French is the language of love, perhaps my love of this French music shall suffice.

This is a very good album to my ear, and this highly collectible and eccentric vinyl obscurity deserves a proper CD release. Since Duffard was able to secure the necessary requirements for such an ambitious and accomplished release with a large and talented group of performers, it is surprising that there is so little information readily available about him. However, he had worked on a project with Pascal Lami before who was quite a popular French pop artist, and so he must have been quite connected within the music industry. Both projects utilized a large array of performers, some of which worked on both.

I might say that this theatrical avant/ folk/ pop/ rock/ jazzy/ operatic/ Zeuhl-related album sounds as if it is Henri Gougaud meets Magma, meets Laurent Thibault, Pierrot Lunaire, and Ripaille. Additionally, I might say that it meets Hellebore, Zao, Ange, Schonberg’s Les Miserables, Arthur Brown, Gyorgy Ligeti, Jerry Goldsmith and Claude Francois for a philosophical and ecclesiastical discussion over a cup of tea (champignon infused perhaps) . I could do this, or use a different set of names, but that seems excessively silly and I fear that it would not provide much help besides. Moreover, I would probably miss the best examples! More correctly, and inarguably, it is composer Pascal Duffard meets all those who participated on his project, and with some research on all those names, I could provide a more useful list than the one I presented. Suffice to say, I like to think of this project as an avant French answer to Andrew Lloyd Weber's "Jesus Christ Superstar." Musical theatre of the absurd in another way to describe this dramatic, wacky, and beautiful recording. Whether you think it absurdly good is another matter. Each vocalist plays a role in the pantomime which is unfolding -- from folk/pop to dialogue, to opera to chant, to laughter and ecstasy (each section has a dialogue of sorts with contrasting textures and tone, and the whole album feels cohesive despite jarring interjections/ juxtapositions and diverse musical expression). It seems a terrific concept even if the finer points of the concept elude me.

The album opens with a trippy, spacey piece (a la some music in "2001: A Space Odyssey") with bleeping electronics that would suit some acid-enhancing sci-fiish movie from the late 60's/ early 70's. From there, it moves into dramatic, operatic, weird free jazzy territory interspersed with experimental avant madness and beautiful poignant-sounding chanson and acoustic passages that provide good contrast and a satisfying playfulness. Bombastic, pretty, strange, pretty strange, and I think pretty wonderful. I also discern a delicious sense of irony in the proceedings.

The direction, arrangements, and performers are very good, as is the production. Although I fully want to give it five stars as it's one of my favourite albums, I find the finale a bit of a letdown. I would not expect an epic, majestic finale, but I would have liked it to end on a very dramatic note. Instead, it tails off and fizzles; not necessarily in a bad way, however. It may work well for the concept, but I would have liked something grander (perhaps of the Grand Guignal variety). The way it ends is just a bit too anti-climactic for me. So I give it four stars for the lack of “kaboom.” The Earth getting blown up at the end due to a deus ex machina, now THAT'S a finale, but, though a rather Prog concept, may be too Hollywoody (especially if "the guy" and "the girl" were to live happily ever after against all odds). Considering that the vinyl can set one back hundreds of dollars, one may expect plenty of "bang" for the buck! If only there was a sequel....