DANS QUEL ETAT J'ERRE

Dans Quel Etat j'Erre is Emmanuel Booz's forth and final album, released three years after it's predecessor it marks yet another evolution in style, it seems all his previous works were leading towards this album. What started in 'Clochard' seems now complete, every song included an instrumental part and you could easily feel the interplay between the musicians, here it seems the instrumentals are a crucial element in the music aside with the vocals. This is his most ambitious and progressive album and it feels like a group effort more than a solo album, and not because of the songs lenths, but because of the material itself. The music holds a lot of ideas and puts you on quite a ride with all kinds of twists and turns, overall it's a real roller coaster. Again all previous musicians are replaced with a different larger ensemble, including Didier Lockwood on violin.

Booz chose to ditch his quiet folky roots along with his slow haunting songs, that seemed to be dominating his albums and kind of defined his style, and thought he would focus more on his aggressive rocky side. The music here is very rocky and kicking but also have a spacey side with calmer parts. guitars, synths, violins all shine and creates this wonderful sound. Booz's vocals are manic and passionate as always and even though if you can't understand a word, they are still captivating and you can feel they are not just there, they definitely have a meaning and intention, even if they are about rats!

'L'ôde aux rats' is the main piece clocking at 16 minutes, it's divided in two, the first part has a fast rhythm and is intended to rock your world featuring great hard rocking guitars fused with all kinds of synths sounds and violins all combined together, top that with excellent vocals, each instrument goes in and out of the music and you have a real feel of togetherness as they go from one idea to the next easily, adding some great solos by violin and guitar. It than falls down quietly to the next part with beautiful synth work, all sounds quite spacey. I love the ending very passionate with very calm synths sounds, just beautiful.

'La symphonie catastrophique' is again rocky and as it goes along the music with the vocals are increasing speed and it all gets more intense leading to a fabulous guitar solo and some more jamming. Very Good. 'Armoire et persil' the closing track features very good synth work with a quirky rhythm, this is the place to comment on the excellent drum work, it's always improvising and not just keeping the beat going, it turns to be more symphonic towards the end, very good stuff indeed!!

I wish it wasn't the end of his musical career and it puzzle's me why he never released more albums, he chose to become an actor and was featured in some US movies as well. Don't pass this album before checking it out, it could be a good starting point for those of you who are not familiar yet with this artist, or this energetic, interesting and totally awsome music, It's worth it. The rating is surprisingly low than what i've expected actually and yet again i find myself personally conflicted of whether it's a 4 or a 5, but i'm going with 4, it's 4.3 stars to be exact.