VOYAGEUR EXTRA-LUCIDE

After a really successful (artistically anyway) debut album, Bréant quickly recorded a second album, which would turn out fairly different, even if the principle appears much the same: making a soundtrack for a film that doesn't exists, but the titles giving you the general storyboard outlines. What strikes on this album is that in some ways, it's much more accessible (in a Vangelis style) but when looking at the line- up, long-time buddy guitarist Perru is missing (except on one bonus track), and even if Lacordaire and Arroyo are around, something is missing. Some with a new-agey type of jazz-fusion album, with the now obvious Magma bass.

Adopting a more informatics artworks, VEL was not recorded at Herouville studios like its predecessor and it was self-produced. These characteristics will turns the album a very different one from Sons Optiques, certainly less complex and more accessible, even a bit new-agey. Bréant playing much synths on this album than on SO, making the album less organic and less complex and if there wasn't, thankfully, Lockwood's violin helping out on half the tracks, but the absence of the guitar (except for one track and it's almost a joke) is too noticeable. The album closes on the only song that has vocals (Blasquiz and Stella Vander) and it's a ridiculous ditty that IMHO doesn't help the album

About the three bonus tracks (totalling some 9 minutes), we find again a bit the same deal as for Sons Optiques: 80's written and recorded pieces that were recorded for this album's release in 02. Of these three, only Fille De La Vie could've fit in with the original album, the other two... VEL is a much less interesting album than SO, but it doesn't mean that it doesn't have its own charms and should be forgotten about. No, it's like a shy little sister that would've grown in the shadow of an encumbering bigger sister.