VERTIGES

Intensive stoner sightseeing tours they launch. A Québécois combo GASPARD are a young and promising psychedelic / post rock project. This album "Vertiges" released as their second album has opened the curtain of 2021 for their decent psychedelia / postedelia tinged with heavy, metallic essence.

The first shot "Le langage des montagnes" is filled with incredible heavy riffs and hallucinogenic sticky melodic repetition strongly with shoegaze appearance. The 13 minutes dominated by them should not be long at all, but drive the audience into another dark dimension. Their sound and melody have high swings and clear intentions, and the power obviously kicks us out of the musical common sense. In "Héliopolis" we can be drenched in quiet but distorted psychedelic agents. A tad metallic but slightly heartwarming atmosphere we could feel via their sedate fuzzy plays. The rhythm section works fantastically for supporting their systematic sound vision with deep, touching beats and vibes. And of course, we are impressed by smooth but non-straightforward guitar elements. They energize us full of passion especially in the last phase. Great brilliant soundscape is followed by the next step "Vertiges" where is a short but quite meaningful moment produced by a massive synthesizer-oriented noise theatre. Oh yes this is dizziness in English, makes sense.

"Voyage dans un courant d'air" is a cool catchy one but full of dissected guitar battles and complicated melodic lines. Reminds us of a slight slight similarity to Les Rallizes Dénudés in terms of exaggerated guitar fuzz. "Cumulonimbus" is another colourful psychedelia in that their powerful expressive phrases are very impressive for us. Sometimes uptempo and sometimes downtempo ... such a combination invades us like a positive wave motion. Mad ambience can be enjoyed in "Pluie de lumière", something urgent around their sound movements absorbs us completely. Very delicate but pretty condensed. The last suite "Ascension" gets started with mysterious calmness and sensitive emotional upsurge, and a tense, bluesy spacey departure follows. As the title says, their melodic explosions are going to develop step by step. Who knows where they will go? But their expression comes to a peak at the last stage of this track, surely.

GASPARD may be that wise old hermit, no, it's a recent band formed in 2017. GASPARD claims to be GODSPEED YOU! BLACK EMPEROR, NEUROSIS, MOGWAI, SWANS, SUNN O))) or RADIOHEAD, eclectic. Film scores like "Zelda", "Pan's Labyrinth" or "Lord of the Rings"; the post-rock, psychedelic, atmospheric and doom- depressive influence is here; in fact these young students are already composing on a future album and like to quote the cat's favorite reading from the cover: Requiem by Györgi Ligeti, all that to say that you have to open your chakras to read these "vertigo". Let's take a closer look at what this second opus is all about! "The language of the mountains" for a dark, psychedelic, unhealthy opening; a funeral march of evil beings who must not be named otherwise they will be invaded by nightmares for the night; a little monolithic THE GATHERING and a musical saw bring an incredible sound all decked out in metronomic percussions; it is heavy, the notes vibrate as if the ether darkens us with its abyssal wadding, as if the sounds engulf you with their notes in a schizoid space on the border of melancholy and hope; a nod to this start to the year that we would like to be more encouraging; sounds reminiscent of MOGWAI and the KAYO DOT in addition tortured even going to the first ANATHEMA in their extreme doom-prog vein with that end that chills the spine. "Héliopolis" and a post line that smacks of GODSPEED YOU! BLACK EMPEROR or the MONOs; a little math- rock, post and psyche for a ballad in the depths of snowy lands; the guitars chat with each other repeatedly, leading to introspection and even meditation; monolithic spleen drum and guitar finale which then explodes like the first THE GATHERING, followed by the 2:27 plane with "Vertiges" and its dismal atmosphere, a little interlude even darker until the infrabasse. "Voyage in a draft" arrives with a playful, pleasant air; a bit of fresh and fruity stoner halfway through then a long explosive typical post-metal crescendo with the addition of saturated notes that can be unpleasant, testing your speakers and ears; sequence with "Cumulonimbus" on the intro then it goes on a good rhythmic post-prog-metal such as RUSSIAN CIRCLES or RED SPAROWES, strong and melancholic, on monolithic lengths amplified by Olivier's drums; the second third leaves more incisive sounds as if to give hope between a heavy, mischievous and subtle passage. This instrumental is by far the most representative of the group, the apocalyptic finale on tribal bass and spleen guitar brings a jubilant vibration. "Rain of light" and a little lull in this brutal sound world with an intimate musical line, the hope for a better world invades you, a little water, a few drops of psyche à la PINK FLOYD of the beginnings, MONKEY3, a bit of the very dark krautrock of TANGERINE DREAM bringing us back to POPOL VUH, to ASH RA TEMPEL for vintage cymbals, the rest very post-rock at the same time inclined to mix blackness with astonishing clarity. "Ascension" concludes this set with a fresh, creative air, a little vitality in this dark album doesn't hurt; a little color, well it's not "Apache" from SHADOWS but it's less dark than before; the guitars put their strings to work there to give a sensibility at the end of the album; all the dark, all the dark lived is just another nightmare; the finale returns to a meditative air, an ethereal spleen atmosphere, a contemplative crystalline guitar arpeggio for the end.

GASPARD has crafted an oxymoronic psychedelic doom-stoner rock album based on the contrasts of the legendary city of Heliopolis, the cover art explaining this anachronism well; the music explains the lands we risk exploring; the progression exists here especially in the monolithic sequels of S-F and horror films, of dreamlike, singular, strange post-rock.