LA CHUTE

Listening to CHRYSALIDE'S second release, La Chute, I concluded that for most of the general prog audience their music would be in the love-or-hate category. Having listened to their debut, this thought was emerging even more.

If you are not familiar with CHRYSALIDE, their style of play is based on acoustic guitars and basses, percussion and both male and female vocals sung in French language (which can be either charming or appalling, depending on your taste...). The main difficulty for me remains the vocals part as I don't happen to have knowledge of the French language. La Chute is a 'continuation' of the band's debut, both in style of music and creativity. The music is identical - can be described as dark acoustic folk.

Sadly, I have to repeat myself in saying that the major issue with this album is repetition. The use of the instruments really does not help in producing something more 'colourful' and interesting and the production, although not bad, could have been improved. The male vocals sometimes seem to sound a bit out of tune (or maybe it's just only me). The overall length of the album (similar to their debut again) does not justify the number of innovative ideas, although there are some very nice melodic moments that lift the mood.

Female vocals - one of the positive sides of the release - could have been used to a higher extent to give a bit more diversity to the 'flatness' of the album. I can't really pick out any specific song as a highlight, apart from the dark tunes in the introduction and epilogue. In my opinion, this record is for specific tastes - the knowledge of French will help you appreciate it more.

I don't totally dismiss La Chute, but I feel it will appeal to a limited number of prog fans. To summarise, I found too many similarities with their debut, and overall quality is one of them.