LA SONGERIE

This Japanese progrock band was very popular in their own country, between 1980 and 1987 they made many albums. The line-up on their first albums included Terutsugu Hirayama (later he founded Teru's Symphonia) and keyboard virtuoso Toshio Egawa (later Gerard and Sheherazade). On their first four albums Novela sounded as a blend of hardrock and symphonic rock, later they turned more from 'heavy progressive' into a harder-edged rock band.

This debut album can be divided in short songs that are up- tempo with fiery and heavy guitarplay and a bit screamy vocals and long compositions with lush keyboards. My highlight on "La songerie" is the titletrack (running time 13.52). It starts very compelling with a bombastic climate featuring wonderful, very moving Mellotron waves and slow but powerful drum beats, goose bumps! Then the moods shifts from mellow (coloured by acoustic guitar, piano and harpsichord) to swinging (nice duet from piano and violin-Mellotron) and splendid bombastic eruptions with violin-Mellotron. After a short Spanish guitar solo the composition ends with a great 'grand finale' delivering wonderful Mellotron and a sensitive electric guitar solo, the final minute contain moving waves from the choir-Mellotron, again goose bumps!

This album is perhaps Novela their most progressive effort. In general they tend to sound a bit simple, the distinctive Japanese vocals (a bit high pitched, sometimes close to screamy) will not be everybody's cup of tea but the often breathtaking titletrack is almost worth buying this CD! And Toshio Egawa has a strong contribution by colouring the composition very tasteful with his keyboards. In Gerard he would deliver his best work!