WHERE IDEAL AND DENIAL COLLIDE

Oddleaf's first album is a delight, a dream come true, powerful and surprising. It shines with the color of love; the love of nature and a symphonic progressive rock at its highest level, that of Yes, Big Big Train, Camel and Wobbler, freely crossing the ages, timeless because immortal. It is the changing colour of a shining prism, which these five French young musicians have put on their adornment to offer us a dazzling record of maturity. Where Ideal and Denial Collide is a successful work that intelligently pushes us to surrender body and soul to the infinite and dreamy joy of its listening, if possible in a relaxing setting, with eyes closed in order to grasp all the subtleties. This is how it can reveal its secrets and invite you to discover its mystery. We can only bow to the perfection of the work done by the band that produces here his first album and by the still talented Jacob Holm-Lupo (White Willow, The Opium Cartel) who mastered it. From «The Eternal Tree» (2:05), beautiful instrumental introduction developing a brief musical theme to illuminate the night that darkens our soul, we are caught in a grandiose work, true inner journey from which one can not come out unchanged. "Life" (11:31) is a true call from the majestic nature, an ode illustrated by a festival of vintage keyboards (Mellotron, Hammond organ, piano), masterfully played by the virtuoso Carina Taurer, carried by a diabolical rhythmic, and magnified by the warm, gentle and powerful singing of Adeline Gurtner. The incandescent melody is softened by the volutes of a transverse flute or illuminated by the crazy arabesques that Mathieu Rossi produces with his EWI, a new model of this instrument that gives to Oddleaf's music an innovative, almost revolutionary dimension, while evoking at times the vibrant sounds of the facetious moog of Manfred Mann or the hotter one of Eloy. «Ethereal Melodies» (7:55) weaves its melodies of an extreme sensitivity on a carpet of silky keyboards and discreet acoustic guitars, The pure voices of Adeline, Carina and Mathieu mix in a stirring polyphony of delicacy and sincerity, punctuated by flutes and completed with a guitar solo that directly address our noblest senses. The theme of «Back In Time» (14:24) is more serious but the youthful enthusiasm of the French group allows to cross these few moments of despair without giving up a bright and proud interpretation. This troubled symphony, with a theme of unfathomable depth, invades us with its memorable melodies, its celestial harmonies. Planant introduction, mellotron from King Crimson's first album, pastoral folk-prog celebrated by the traverse flute, medieval winks, stunning solos of organ Hammond jazzy, bridge rhythmized with a lightness, a velocity and a precision that reminds us of the Canterbury style, romantic interlude with classical piano, angelic polyphony, disstructured and syncopated final, «Back In Time» blows the hot and cold but is not so much an eclectic mix as a miraculous style collision. «Coexistence, part 1» (11:20) is a long frenetic instrumental, the most technical part of the record, at the gates of jazz-prog-fusion, without giving up sumptuous melodies. It is above all a remarkable sequence by the fluidity of its arrangement, the obvious strength of its construction. This track with a dazzling unchained rhythm, marks a form of apotheosis, giving both the sensation of an uninterrupted epic momentum but also that of a permanent contrast, accentuated by gigantic major chords, leaving us in awe, with burning desire to hear more. The record ends symbolically with the song of the whales, this lament of our mother earth that manifests itself with grace and sweetness, like a sorrow seeming to come from the very origins of the world and which can, as the whole of Oddleaf's record, and leave within you an unspeakable and disturbing feeling of anguish and sadness, as well as to appease you and give you the hope of a better world, in harmony, and more respectful of nature. Where Ideal and Denial Collide is a masterstroke made of words and music that pierce our armor of indifference like projectiles and fragment into shards of life. It is the fabulous embodiment of Oddleaf's humanistic visions, as a subtle essence poured from the heavens that comes to dorate with its bright reflections our moments of melancholy to make us finally feel the fearsome and solemn love of nature and open before the eyes of our mind the magical horizon of a new world, filled with a bright future. (review previously published in Big Bang Magazine #127)