SI, PARTIE 1

I will happily call this album the greatest of the year. Nemo all take the progress that was made with the fantastic Prélude à la ruine, all the potential that they have shown elsewhere, and make good on it. Whereas Prélude had 11 songs, here we find only 5, but each song here is not only lengthy, but extremely polished and individually characteristic. In this department, the sort of albums I feel compare to Si pt I are Close to the Edge, Relayer, Selling England by the Pound &c.

Lyrically, Si pt I is far darker than any of the previous albums; nowhere is this more in evidence than in the opener, the spectacular Douce Mort, perhaps their best song, certainly one of the bestmini-epics I have heard. Elsewhere, there is bombast and power in Ici, Maintenant, energy and drama in Miroirs, and a spectacular epic in Apprentis Sorciers. Si, meanwhile, which I guess has no little importance as the title track for the whole two album concept, competes with Douce Mort in quality; this is the perhaps the finest prog ballad ever written.

What with he quality of song-writing display here, the amount of depth in the structuring and flow of each piece, the array of brilliant musical ideas on offer, I struggle to think of any album by a contemporary prog band that is of the same stature. The sheer consistancy is what is especially impressive, as every single one of these songs would stand up against the finest few, if not the finest of all, written by most other bands, even great ones. I really cannot praise this album enough. Simply stunning.