ROUGE CIEL

Debut album from this group fusion all kinds of music, from jazz to classical to rock and more. The quartet veers and meanders between a form of avant-prog and somekind of RIO where Del Fabro's violin play a dominant role, sometimes reminding us of Charles Kaczinsky's contribution to Conventum and some other times like Ponty in his late 70's discography (the second track Fardeaux D'Hier). But the group is also not far away to what Belgian groups Julverne or Louise Avenue do in terms of chamber rock, even if they are much more electrical than those two, and also less dissonant than the early Univers Zero or Art Zoyd.

This album does not give itself easily either, even more so if you are not an expert on this type of music and the rather ugly artwork (looks like medicinal computer images of viruses) does not help either. The spectrum is wide and goes from abstract music Parenthese Hypnotique to mid-tempo Eastern-European semi-jigs (the closing Brivichuse >> WTF??). But before reaching the end of the album, Rouge Ciel (red sky in Anglais) will have taken you through a fascinating trip from jazz-rock reminding you of Reinhardt/Grapelli days (Campagne) through heavy dissonance ala Univers Zoyd (Mathilde) and a lighter one mixed light Can-like Krautrock (the amazing Abricotabricole) to the fascinating Flux D'Energie (intense violin exchanges with a sweet piano) and complete organized chaos (Etude Dissonante).

The only slight remark I will say is that the album is a little unfocused, because a bit wide- spectrum-ed. Outside of that we have a stunning debut album (which will take unfortunately almost four years to follow-up) with no weak tracks, which allows us to think Quebec's second wave of prog (started in the late 90's) is worthy of their late-70's ascendancy.