L'IMMORTEL OPÉRA

After some 15 years of existence and 5 self-productions Magnesis eventually found their home on a major label, after being offered a contract by Musea.The band would welcome a second keyboardist in 2002, Alexandre Moreau , and two years later they found a new bassist, Fabien Lo Cicero.With a six-piece line-up they entered the La Praye Studios in October 2004 to record their sixth album ''L'immortel opera''.The recordings lasted about 9 months and the album was launched in 2005.

Propably the most symphonic of all Magnesis albums, this one met the high expectations and ended up to be a nice experience of yet another ANGE-like lyricism, surrounded by MARILLION-esque and GENESIS-like keyboard parts and the edgy guitars of the modern Neo/Symphonic Prog genre.The sound of the band contains now some narrations and some heavier guitar leads towards an updated style and the music remains rich and varied, featuring acoustic parts among the electrified atmospheres.''L'immortel opera'' is characterized by the more intense Classical influences displayed ina Magnesis album, like the opening church organ on ''Ouverture'' or on the last moments of ''Le pacte'' and the academic orchestrations on ''Final'', flirting a bit with THE ENID, although the string sections do sound a bit fake.Rest of the material is not far away from what Magnesis are used to, very deep synthesizers in a symphonic vein, guitars with both angular and melodic offerings and decent compositions with theatrical and poetic edges.One th other hand the vocals seemingly cover a lot of the album's length with some spoken parts being doubled by extended atmospheric soundscapes, that do sound rather minimalistic compared to the regular flow of Magnesis' sound.The decibels are up and so is the energy of the group, the tracks are pretty long with the combination of organ and synths being quite efficient and the result is a good work along the lines of symphonic-oriented modern Prog Rock.

Not the best but far from the worst Magnesis album.Synth parts are excellent and keyboard/guitar runs come next, the vocal lines are not particularly convinving with the chosen mellow background, but overall this was a nice effort by the group with a slightly upgraded style.Recommended.