TIME MACHINE

Fifth album for the British quintet COMEDY OF ERRORS since their brilliant comeback in 2011 with "Disobey" which relaunched their career more than twenty years after a chaotic debut in the neo-progressive movement of the eighties, more precisely in 1984. am going to tell you their story again since I have already done so in my previous columns for the group and Fred SIMONEAU had conducted an interview with Joe CAIRNEY in July 2017

Five years during which the group from GLASGOW has remained stable in terms of personnel, the same six musicians are present on this "Time Machine" which was entirely composed by keyboardist Jim JOHNSTON as were the previous opuses. The work is quite short forty-five minutes plus the track "Disobey" in the 2016 live version, I would say it's enough and much better than a seventy-eight minute pad of which you don't listen to half ....

"The Knight Returns" which opens the album begins like a good old rock n roll, surprising to say the least, we beat time, we tap our feet, the kind of start you don't expect, very good for start a concert, more progressive in the second half with the guitars (Sam MC CULLOCH and Mark SPALDING) featured (8/10). Change of scenery, change of tempo with very original "Demigods" with a cover of Ludwig VAN B to open the ball, a title where Joe CAIRNEY shares his demi-gods with us (Leonardo DA VINCI, GALILEE, NEWTON, EINSTEIN, SHAKESPEARE... ) a song rather song, a sort of pastiche to remind us that some men of the past were well ahead of their time (7/10).

New sharp turn with the first epic of the album "Wonderland" of the complexioned progressive with a three-minute instrumental approach, quite rock (the two six string players still them), a piece with many breaks and changes of direction, not easy to be continued but that's also the progressive spirit; Jim JOHNSTON only really enters the scene from the seventh minute, protean keyboards, violin samplers, Mellotron pads, moog solo, in short, the complete panoply is out, Joe's voice is modified as if it had been vocoder ? between the tenth and the fourteenth minute, weird...(8/10). A small four-minute instrumental pearl "The Past of Future Days" to breathe, of Hispanic inspiration surrounded by a grandiose mellotron and a beautiful bass (John FITZGERALD) well rounded, strongly original there too (10/10).

Make way for the second epic of the disc with the eponymous title "Time Machine" (10/10), introduced by a soft piano over the first two minutes before a muffled rhythmic pair intervenes then Jim's keyboards in loops for a rise in intensity until the seventh minute and then a new surprise...a break with lyrics in French..."Tomorrow, at dawn, when the countryside whitens, I will leave. You see, I know that you I'll go through the forest, I'll go through the mountain. I can't stay away from you any longer. I'll walk with my eyes fixed on my thoughts, Seeing nothing outside, hearing no sound, Alone, unknown, with my back bent, my hands crossed, Sad, and the day for me will be like night. I will not watch the gold of the falling evening, Nor the sails in the distance descending towards Harfleur, And when I arrive, I will I will put on your grave A bouquet of green holly and flowering heather"

The most fervent and passionate among you will have recognized the famous "Tomorrow at dawn..." taken from the Contemplations of Victor HUGO of 1856, another demi-god (not mentioned in the second piece of the album) for come full circle on this COMEDY OF ERRORS album. I repeat myself but we are in the presence of a record off the beaten track of agreed and too often recited progressive music, for the record it is Jim who recites Victor because much better in French than Joe, confidence of the latter ?:), it is a "tribute" as we sometimes specify, to an exceptional man.