EXCALIBUR: LA LEGENDE DES CELTES

ALAN SIMON, from the historic Breton capital of Nantes, may not be a household name everywhere, but the "Excalibur" trilogy released over the past decade and a half, and lavishly performed on stage, was a big seller in his native France. "Excalibur" occupies the sonic terrain at the intersection of "Riverdance" and the ALAN PARSONS PROJECT, and Simon himself seems comfortable with one foot in Keltia and another in crossover prog. While he has enlisted the help of other artists on albums more appropriately filed under "S", herein is a collaboration of "Various" friends under his direction, including an orchestra and well known artists like TRI YANN, FAIRPORT CONVENTION, ROGER HODGSON (SUPERTRAMP), GABRIEL YACOUB (MALICORNE), ANGELO BRANDUARDI and DAN AR BRAZ.

The result is a mixed bag with the scales tipping to the plus side. Brilliant orchestral sequences like in "Ad Libitum" (featuring CARLOS NUNEZ on flute), haunting and occasionally chilling prog folk songs like "The Elements", "Morgane", "Camlann" and "Gest of Auvin", and more overtly celtic beauties like "Davet ar Baradoz" are among the many high points. In contrast, "Morning Song", "La Complainte de Perceval", and "The Will of God" are glossy and drossy as most IONA or latter day BARCLAY JAMES HARVEST. "Castel Rock" and "Celtic Dream" are slightly above average Celtic rock instrumentals that benefit from rock instrumentation, particularly lead guitar accents and modern percussion. One of my personal favourites is "Pour L'Amour de la reine", which is TRI YANN's faithful approximation of MANU CHAO with all the attitudinal musicality that accompanies such a posture.

ALAN SIMON's first "Excalibur" disk straddles a delicate furrow between the ancient and modernity, and does so more tastefully than one might expect. Almost 3.5 stars.

Castel Rock

I have reviewed Alan Simon's ambitious Excalibur albums in reverse chronological order. We come now to the first part of the trilogy. Like the second and third parts, here again Simon enlists a large number of artists from the Folk and Rock worlds. But unlike the other two this one plays more like a compilation of musically unrelated tracks; some songs are pure Pop Rock (in the vein of Supertramp whose Roger Hodgson performs here), some pure Folk Rock (in the vein of Fairport Convention who also performs here), and a few are New-Age/World-Rock in the style of Mike Oldfield (who is not involved even if it sounds like it).

The material is rather strong throughout, but it fails to integrate or fuse the various musical elements together. Indeed, the cuts on which Roger Hodgson performs could have come straight off a Supertramp album, and the ones featuring Fairport Convention equally could have been taken from one of their many albums (and they did indeed release a few of these songs on their own Fame & Glory album that is based entirely on material that they contributed to Alan Simon's Excalibur projects over the years). Another factor contributing to the slightly disintegrated nature of this album is that some lyrics (and all the narration) is in French, and some in English. This might be distracting for some listeners.

Overall, this is a less interesting album than the subsequent parts (Excalibur II & III), at least from a Prog perspective. Still, it is an enjoyable listen that will, at least in part, appeal to fans of both Celtic Folk Rock and Prog-related Pop Rock. Prog fans are however advised to investigate Excalibur II & III first.