WITHOUT NOTICE

They can be sure, this album won't be without notice. Founded in 2019 BEND THE FUTURE is a relatively new band from Grenoble, France. That five-piece combo is delivering sophisticated music, featuring vocals and a strong jazzy orientation. I would say especially piano (Samy Chëbre) and saxophone (Pierre-Jean Ménabé) are making the difference here, just to underline that. Now they obviously are aiming higher. This sophomore album 'Without Notice' was released on the German Tonzonen Records label, and is directing them into the prog heaven at the latest. Not only due to that hilarious cover image, brilliant idea. Seven songs were chosen, vinyl length formatted in sum. I would say the album highlight marks the lively and dynamic opener Lost In Time, a masterpiece, really love this one!

They have selected an intriguing main motif, led by a repetitive piano line, also equipped with expressive guitar playing and some ethno world flair. Wonderful! The smooth As We Parry then delivers a more relaxed counterpart. The saxophone is very present. Merely strikes due to Piel Pawlowski's very busy drum playing. We Aim Higher lives from diverse edges, several ups and downs, partially relaxing, partially engaged, the groove is omnipresent anyway. Both the sensitive Miniature and Mus are growing with every listen. 'Without Notice' is a very fine joint effort. Compositions are on a high level and the musicianship is priceless anyway. High grades for this excellent art and jazz rock hybrid.

A French group that leaves a pearl, it should be noted! A group created to make people love the prog of the ancients and even older jazz, a group created recently which denotes by its incisive cover, go I'm going! A group that goes directly to jazzy regions with sax, do you want some, and that allows itself to add electric touches, ambient limit; it's BEND THE FUTURE to serve you.

Note a fusion of genres scratching on those of the 70's and complementing them admirably with the recent fruity sound, jazzy touches that seem in fact to integrate naturally into the melodic lines of the different titles, in short an innovative, creative, singular musical osmosis for not to say staggering, which further pushes away the concepts of progressive rock.

A neat album, a lot of room for improvement though for me.

I find the guitar bits to be done very well along with the saxophone. On the other hand the vocals are weak, reminding me of the male singer from Mirage and the bass is not prominent enough. Something I appreciate about this album is that the guitar is not used as a lead instrument but as accompaniment and the instrumentals don't really put an instrument at the front where they proceed to tear it up. An instrument I rarely mention, drums are very present throughout the album, whether that's using the full kit or just a bit of cymbals/hi hats.

Overall I think some of the other parts of the band aside from the guitar/saxophone bring down the music as a whole. I realized this as the moments where I found myself enjoying the music where largely when it was not quite a full band affair. Additionally the music rarely picks up, staying very chill and static.