SI, PARTIE II - L'HOMME IDÉAL

This was a tough one for me. As usual it took a few listens to get a real feel for the music. The album is intended to be a single continuous piece, in 10 parts. On that score, I don't think it does very well as to me it sounds like separate songs segued together, rather than a continuous piece of music. But that really doesn't matter as the music is good. There is quite a bit of variety on this album, as Erik notes in his review, more than on previous Nemo albums.

The fact that it is part 2 of a two album concept in obvious from the beginning as we here the end of the last track from the previous CD fade in where it had faded out on that album. From there the music goes to the background as we here talking in what sounds like a bar. After a half minute or so of this, the excellent opening track blasts in. In fact, this odd way of beginning the album is the only real weak spot, in light of the fact that every other Nemo album starts with a powerful opening track. This one gets a bit diluted by the need to join it to the previous album. Still, this isn't a big problem if you keep in mind that this is part two of a concept and they wanted to maintain a sense of continuity between the albums (which this does, but still makes for an odd beginning to an album).

In spite of what I said earlier about it sounding like separate songs, I find that no track really stands out above the others like on previous Nemo albums. In this case though, that is a good thing as all the tracks are of high quality, even by Nemo standards (which is saying something). Aside from the beginning, and my feeling that there is a kind of artificial attempt to bind the album into one piece of music when it doesn't really sound like one, this is another great Nemo album. Because of those reservations, however, I can't really call it a masterpiece (though perhaps listening to the previous album and this one back to back will yield the true masterpiece?.........I'll have to try that soon). So a 3.5 for this, rounding down to a 3 for the archives. I would also add that newcomers should start with a different album, this being part two of a concept in may not seem quite as cohesive as other Nemo albums. But if you already like this band and you don't have this yet, you need to get it right away.