GODZILLA

Coming from the southern Occitan region of France, the band AUDIO'M has been quite ambitious in its pursuit of reaching the pinnacle of progressive rock right from the very start. Take the band's name for example which is a clever amalgamation of the word "audio" with the unlikely pairing "oidium, a thin-wailed spore that is better known as a vineyard disease! Add to that with the band's self-titled debut that emerged in 2016, AUDIO'M featured a staggering ten vocalists and musicians that constructed a larger than life sound but just as soon as the band hit the prog scene seemed to fall into silence. 
Well that quiet time has ceased and in 2022 the band which has been whittled down to a mere seven members has returned with a most ambitious sophomore release titled GODZILLA which showcases a retro prog vibe of the golden age with ample doses of rock, folk, jazz and even baroque music. This time around the band has opted to go for the prog jugular by crafting a single 43 1/2 minute track! No small undertaking here. The entire album may be a mere single track but is broken down into three suits but what a track it is! The first suite is titled "Little Boy" followed by "Gaia" and "The Wake."

GODZILLA revolves around a fable that is told on three albums. This release is only the first but the premises originate on the last track of the debut album, "Friend-less-R" which began the tale of a firebird / phoenix. The story narrates the tale of a phoenix egg that hatches after the explosion of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and upon leaving the scene the hatchling sees the plane that delivered the fatal goods and thinks its his mother. The entire trilogy revolves around this fledgling phoenix searching the world for his perceived mother and his encounters with various mythological creatures and other trials of life. In short this is an ecological lesson set in super-prog prose. How's that for prog excess? Love it!

You don't have to be up on nerdy lyrical concepts to appreciate this fine release however. I usually ignore such storylines and am in it for the music itself. GODZILLA does not disappoint. This single track album experience delivers a nice mix of progressive rock workouts laid out in a 43 1/2 minute stream of consciousness. The track pretty much jumps right into the lyrical presentation with lead singer Emmanuelle Olmo-Cayuela belting out her vocal lines. Honestly i mistook her for a man given that she's a dead ringer for Gnidrolog's Colin Goldring. Although i missed this connection on the first album, the folky parts of AUDIO'M sound just like Gnidrolog in the modern era and that is NOT a bad thing.

Despite comprising a single track as an album experience, GODZILLA does not get bogged down in tedium. While easily digestible melodic motifs are what reel you in and keep you hooked, there are many prog workouts that take this into the world of true complexity. The music is soulful and intricate but never strays from its mission of narrating the tale. There is a brief moment of silence in the middle that effectively divides the album in two but there are actually three suites. The music ranges from lush pastoral progressive folk to fully fueled heavier rock with an active guitar presence, a bantering bass and drumming freneticism. All the musicians are quite skilled and conspire to create a larger sum of the parts.

This gargantuan rock opera certainly could be classified as retro prog as it tackles many styles of classic influences. Primarily existing in the symphonic prog world with crafty atmospheric backdrops and active key stabs tinkling intricate melodies and virtuosity, GODZILLA brings classic Camel, Genesis, Kansas and Focus to mind as well as some of the tricks of the trade from the Italian symphonic prog scene. Heavier passages occur but once again i cannot help but think of Gnidrolog's "Lake Lake" album as the key reference for comparison as even the heavier parts evoke that Goldring vocal style. The music is much denser and complex than anything Gnidrolog conjured up on that album so it's really a reference point only.

While two track albums have been fairly common in prog history, single track albums have been much rarer. I can only think of a few. Jethro Tull's "A Passion Play," Al-BIrd's "Sodom & Gomorra XXI - Progressive Symphonic Poem," a few Buckethead Pikes, Cheer-Accident's "Trading Balloons," Daal's "Navels Falling Into A Living Origami," a few Devil Doll albums, Edge of Sanity's "Crimson" and "Crimson II," Green Carnation's "Light Of Day, Day Of Darkness," well you get the point. Such ambitious album long tracks have to pack an album's worth of ideas into its lengthy run and there's where i feel GODZILLA falls a little short. The track is excellent as a continuous listening experience but seems to lack enough variety to warrant its running time. Another factor that brings this down a tad bit is the fact that Emannuelle Olmo-Cayuela as competent as she is doesn't have a wide vocal range which would expand this album's appeal a bit.

Overall i may not find the album perfect but this is still one of my favorite albums of 2022 as the musical aspects are simply amazing and although i would have loved to hear more adventurous deviations from the musical procession that seems fairly uniform, i am more than impressed by the number of variations the band has eked out from more or less a basic theme. This is a fine accomplishment indeed and only the first of the three trilogies so that means there are two more albums in the horizon. I'm confident this band will expand and develop its sound into ever more nooks and crannies of the prog world. This is an excellent first installment of this ambitious project and not one to be missed. For those who love crazy complex and overweening prog then this was made for you! Definitely one that requires a few attentive listening sessions but the music continues to deliver time and time again. A huge hit for this French group. AUDIO'M is here to stay!