LA GARE DE TROYES

It's the nineteenhoundredeighties and Ange wasn't the same they were in the seventies. Something essential was missing and a part of me is sad they still called themselves Ange. Though is this not a bad record and I still stink it's interesting to follow this band from the stone age to modern tunes. Before this record the band had done four very good records 1972-1975, one less interesting 1976 and them to more very good ones 1978-1981 before they fell down into inferior records. "Moteur!" was very weird and next thing was ok and now we have "La Gare de Troyes" from 1983. It's Ange's tenth record and a decent one, the best in three years. What's back of old Ange here is the magnificent cover I love. It's so strong and artistic. Unfortunately the cover is the far best feature of the record. The musicians are the brothers Decamps: Christian(vocals, keyboards), Francis(keyboards and vocals), Serge Cuenot(guitar), Jean- Claude Potin(drums, percussion) and Laurent Sigrist (bass).

La Gare de Troyes is made up by nine tracks and it's an even disc we hold in our hands. What I missed on the two precursors was the special emotional vocals and I think they are back on this record. Christian Decamps sings very emotional and unique. To hear him is to scent there is something left. Even if I don't understand french it's a pleasure to here him singing and that is the biggest advantage here. The title track "La Gare de Troyes" is a greta example of how the vocals are almost as good as before but the instrumentation is very boring and shows the blandest of the eighties(6/10). I would say that is present in every other track as well. "Va-t'en" (6/10) is sad and calmer and also consists of a saxophone solo and fine guitar in the end, "Shéhérazade" also contains nice saxophone(6/10). The best tracks on this record is "Neuf heures"(7/10) with more power than the others songs and especially "Tout blue!" where some form of progressive rock is left. This song has many nice passages and more interesting instrumentation such as heavy drums and fine guitar(7/10). The least interesting thing on this record is "Les jardins" do I think; it's the most bland track.

I found this listening nice and fully enjoyable and will continue my Ange journey later. What I most missed were the blatant organs of Ange. That heavy and sometimes a little ugly organ sound was what was so special fore Ange. I hope they will come back to that because these 80s keyboards aren't interesting.