PRÉSAGES

Nemo is a french band who has almost 10 years in prog field, and by now in this moment they are a very strong band who captures all the best from the old school in their music. Clearly influenced by Rush but even in places I trace some Tiles elements, Nemo's second album - Pressage from 2003 is a very exciting piece of work, realy, not very often I have the chance to listen to such compact, tight and in the same time very original and intristing music. They realy done it with this album, extremly well crafted musicians delivering some very strong moments, the instrumental passages are long and very challenging , and never boring, with each piece you descover that Nemo is among the best in this zone. Nemo combines very well symphonic elements with a lot of heavy prog arrangements a la Rush and Tiles but also some jazz interplays here and there. The time signatures are impressive with a lots of breaks and changes in rythm. First time I've listen to this album I was impressed specially by one thing , the duel between guitar of Jean Pierre Louveton (who also done the vocal parts) and the magnificient Guillaume Fontaine the keyboard player, the interplay between these two guys is mindblowing, intelligent, and damn good all the way, they realy know to make an album shine all the way. Not to mention that the drumer Jean Baptiste Itier and bass player Benoit Gaignon made a solid rythm section hard to beat even by well known bands. As a whole this album kick ass , and all the pieces are very strong. More than half of the album is instrumental, this is another thing worth mentioning because these guys realy knows to handle the instruments in such way to make almost a masterpiece of an album, and above all this is a young band with a great future in front of them. I will give this album 4 stars without hesitation, more like 4.5, a serious band for serious listners, recommended for sure.