LES LARMES DU DALAÏ LAMA

The ironic album cover by Phil Umbdenstock (inspired by a painting of Jerome Bosch called "La nef des fous = The ship of fools") is enticing, in the booklet you can find all the lyrics and some interesting drawings illustrating the songs but. The quality of the songwriting in my opinion is quite poor: there are no great tracks here and the music is more close to the genre called "variété française" than to the peculiar prog rock of Ange's early albums. There's no much to save in this album. Just some good melodic pop rock songs like "Le ballon de Billy" or "Les herbes folles" (song inspired by the book of J.-P. Germonville "Arthur R., voyou de Charleville", with the ghost of the poet Arthur Rimbaud hanging in the lyrics), the rest is very close to boredom. "Il faut tout oublier / Le présent, le passé, les lendemains. You have to forget everything / The past, the present and the days to come" (from "Tout oublier", one of weakest songs in this album). Ange here seem to have lost their way to prog, so I don't think that this album could be of some interest for a prog lover except collectors and die hard fans of the band.