PREACHING TO THE CHOIR

BLIND EGO is RPWL's guitarist band. This album is their 4th. I had been alerted and seduced by "Mirror" and especially "Numb" of 2009, flirting with a good ARENA, a little PORCUPINE TREE and IQ, in short, good especially as the singers came from those of ARENA and gave a different air of what one would expect on his original band. We can feel here the hard FM, the AOR even with the well-chiseled choruses, but not only. The presence of Sebastian de SYLVAN'S on the bass gives more intensity, heaviness and goes into rock metal with progressive drifts, but let's take a closer look.

"Massive" begins with a very fat, full sound, 30 '' TO MARS lineage but with more synths, sustained neo-prog, then an effective riff tells us straight away about the background of the album; it's heavy, heavier than RPWL, the submachine gun drums are our ears, it's concise, slightly groovy prog metal, and the prog sounding comes with the keyboard layers; otherwise it's very punchy melodic metal, Kalle's touch having something to do with it. 'Preaching To The Choir', the 2nd longest track, always on a catchy tune, with several drawers with latency and metal prog like 30 '' TO MARS knew how to do it so well, the small chorus at the end showing nevertheless well the desire to get out of melodic prog metal. It's square, it's professional.

'Burning Alive' tumbles with an almost pop title, which would make you want to listen to the radio again' if the stations were playing music again! It's almost dancing, a clean, well-crafted sound, a little memory of the REO SPEEDWAGON from afar, a bit of the energetic TOTO with another voice though, plunged into the 80's for sure. "Line In The Sand" returns with a musical bombshell shared by nasty neo-prog, pop-rock verses and a wild chorus, violent even but also tamed by the soft voice that ensues, a little djent, a little in the line of RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE, it deposits! "Dark Paradise" with the mega hit on the border of the romantic ballad, hit that we could listen to in replay, a bit of EUROPE, a bit of JOURNEY, a bit of FOREIGNER for another potential hit, acoustic guitar, synth then millimeter solo of the guitar before the end in acoustics.

"In Exile" continues in the same vein, I can hear bits of Billy Idol's voice and a rhythm that makes you move your legs, good melodic prog rock in itself. 'Heading For The Stars' and again that warm, languid voice that goes wonderfully with the basic rhythm; a fracture occurs during the more melodic, more welcoming, more progressive chorus 'in the sense of proposing a different atmosphere' arising from the basic rhythm; here perhaps the two most beautiful guitar solos in a row and 5'30 "where there is nothing to throw away. "Broken Lands" leaves him on a heavy tune, an imposing bass and a melodic atmosphere, more predictable, the riff maintaining the energetic frame. "The Pulse" finally for the title which will make us regret the too short previous titles: voice ' la Bruce Dickinson, latent rhythmic base, the foot of any fan of prog from France, Navarre and Quebec: energetic crescendo and immense title , hypnotic; prog, that which we know no longer exists for a mixture of genres, passing through all states; a title which irremediably attracts the replay touch, an essential title, nervous, riffs, breaks, BLIND EGO in full force.

BLIND EGO released an album of raw and pure energy earlier this year. BLIND EGO allows you to travel on progressive landscapes by allying heavy prog and melodic prog, by pushing the prog metal of papa to the nettles and by giving it back a punchy outline, when many bring calmer sounds, which changes a little in the current universe. The only regret and sizeable, why not have composed more titles like the last one, why not have ventured more into these progressive climates? This album could have been even better in that sense.