ALIVE

Powerful and Very Worthwhile Spin

In the final months of my previous life, in the distant, "before-times", AKA BC (Before Covid), I listened to the last two studio albums by Klone a lot. They were frequent company during my daily commute. Was that a dream?

I moved onto other music in my deep, sanity-saving, prog dive of the past many months.

I saw this new, live, Klone album come up for new releases and gave it a few consecutive, very careful spins. It hit me quite hard, partially due to the context described above, but also because it is very good. Very good.

Through the first part of the opening track, Yonder, I was thinking that this is just going to be an uneventful, accurate, restatement of the studio albums, but then singer Yann Ligner let his voice start to fade long notes into distant, death yells, seamlessly. It was subtle and infrequent, but it was perfect. I'm not a fan of that style of singing, although I'm starting to "get it" a little now that I've let Opeth and Cult of Luna enter my consciousness. It sounded really good in this opener! It helps that Yann is probably one of the finest singers today.

Ok, now that you have my attention, Klone, where is this ride going to go? I'm giving you an hour, show me.

I had tried listening to earlier Klone, but I couldn't get past the death yell screams that were completely absent from the last two albums that I loved. It looks like I missed out. This album leans heavily on the last two albums (primarily Here Come the Sun), but it scatters in several songs from the previous two, heavier albums. What a great introduction to these new to me tracks where the death yells were tastefully interspersed and quite infrequent. I may need to visit those albums now.

The tracks from the last two albums were played quite truthful to the studio versions, but with a rough edge and more aggression, sometimes due to the heavier or more distorted guitar or bass, sometimes due to heavier drums, and often due to Yann's mastery of his voice and him frequently riding right on the edge of pure aggression (case in point, last few minutes of Nebulous).

The track selection and order in this recording are perfection. The songs flow and take you many places through various soundscapes, from dreamy to crushing heavy, but always with a deep, emotional, melancholy.

There's something a little different about this band and this album is a great representation and it would be a good introduction to the band. The guitars are very clean for a heavy band and the percussion is often sublte and complex (think Tool's Danny Carrey). The guitars from the the albums before those are more distorted and more metal somewhat, but still pretty light on the gain. The use of seven string guitars or heavily drop-tuned guitars contributes to the heaviness on most songs and makes up for the lower-gain sound. The earlier Klone tracks remind me of Riverside at times. On this live album there are also some subtle keys and atmospherics that vary a little from the studio albums and make things a little more interesting.

Klone covers a lot of themes, moods and styles, but they all flow together very well with a unique sound of their own. It's all weaved together by a tight and powerful rhythm section playing an interesting, blended style and some of the best vocals you will ever hear.

This album will deeply satisfy a Klone fan, but I suspect it would be very well appreciated by any fans of heavy prog. For me, personally, it's the other life bookend of this surreal past 15 months. A bookend different from the other. Hardened, tougher, changed, yet sensitive and evolved.

I can't give this one 4 stars and there is no 4.6, so it is a 5 for me.

Klone is the group from Poitou which started to live in 2003 and had fun finding their style of music between Porcupine Tree, Opeth, Paradise Lost and Tool for heaviness. Snatches of Riverside, Pink Floyd or Anathema will gradually integrate into the sound already well supplied with ethereal musical lines, in crescendo and with an intensity coming from Yann's strong voice.

Their latest opus '' Le Grand Voyage '' as well as the penultimate '' Here Comes The Sun '' are greatly represented on this live of more than 80 minutes (a live when the pandemic recedes, when the theaters will reopen ), '' Yonder '' and the always floydien '' Breach '' very captivating, '' The Last Experience '' for a diabolical crescendo hold the string; two tracks from "The Dreamer's Hideaway" as well as three from "Black Days" including a Bjork cover finish filling the "Alive" set-list. Specifically, the start is on the last one released in the studio and you may feel like you are just recording; cold, intense, bewitching, ethereal, metallic, explosive, enjoyable atmosphere, just that. The titles invite you to travel, to contemplate, a captivating moment between shadow and light; a great snub to covid which has prevented many festivities and which will hopefully come to an end; for the record it was Klone that I saw in concert just before the sudden end of the demonstrations last year, it is with this "Alive" that the venues reopen and that I tell you to go see them.

Klone makes atmo rock on a heavy prog trend at the border of genres and does it well, Klone releases this live for those who still fear gatherings, Klone makes travel so go with them to stay in the musical layers.

4.5 stars. This is my kind of live record where they stay fairly faithful to the originals but add some extra energy and passion because of the audience. An interesting release as we get music from two shows three years apart. Different drummer but other than that I can't tell the difference in sound between these two live events and they jumbled the songs up too. Their most recent studio album when this live record was released is "Le Grand Voyage" from 2019 and we get four songs from it all on the most recent show in France in 2019 that's featured on here. The earlier show is from 2016 in The Netherlands on the "Here Comes The Sun" tour which is my favourite album by them. Four tracks from that record as well plus two from 2012's "The Dreamer's Hideaway" and three from 2010's "Black days". Their first two releases had no entries.

The star of the show once again is the vocalist Yann Ligner who adds some extreme vocals to this live release, not a lot but it's a positive for me just adding to the intensity and the way he goes from normal singing to extreme is so cool. The guy is incredibly talented. It was also cool to hear some songs I wasn't familiar with like "Rocket Smoke" from "The Dreamer's Hideaway" and the closer "Army Of Me" a Bjork cover and from "Black Days". "Yonder" the opener is amazing with the thunder to open and how this isn't in my top five just shows how strong this record is. Top five includes two from "Le Grand Voyage" and they are back to back in "Breach" and "Sealed" two gorgeous tracks with plenty of atmosphere and amazing vocals. The other three from my top five are from "Here Comes The Sun" in "The Drifter" a song I can't get enough of along with "Immersion" and "Nebulous" and man so much emotion in thee songs.

My hunch paid off this time when I bought this live cd along with "Le Grand Voyage" and "Here Comes The Sun". A powerful band with atmosphere galore and a singer that is second to none.