LA VIEILLE QUE L'ON BRÛLA

RIPAILLE's sole album is for sure a very pleasant and good one but in some way after reading the praising reviews here I've to say I expected a bit more from it. Closest comparisons might be Canadian band HARMONIUM and in some way ANGE. Overall it's a very nice blend of symphonic rock with some (not too much) medieval folk adaptations which are most obvious in the songs "La Veuve de Nicole" which is the one where the crumhorn comes into action if I'm not wrong, in the short one " Les Loups" and in "Epilogue".

Positive points are the highly versatile instrumentation and the excellent musicianship. Only the rather bad drums in the faster tracks like "Satane Jardin" and "Le Sabbat des Sorts" sounding slightly "disco"-alike are blearing a bit the overall good impression. In general I've got to say I enjoyed much more the slower acoustic tunes and felt slightly irritated by the "strange" and almost hilarious keyboards used in "Le Sabbat des Sorts".

The two bonus tracks from their never released second album are a very nice add-up and really make the CD worth spending the money.

I was thinking really hard how I should rate this one, finally I did a song by song rating with the result of 3.5 / 5 stars. Since half stars are not available and it's rather overrated here anyway I decided to give only 3 stars but not without emphasising that this is just my own personal view (like all others here as well). It's a very good album but there were better French (and Quebequois) ones even from that period like from CARPE DIEM or MANEIGE for example.