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Harmonium - Harmonium en tournée CD (album) cover

HARMONIUM EN TOURNÉE

Harmonium

 

Prog Folk

4.22 | 103 ratings

From Progarchives.com, the ultimate progressive rock music website

Tarcisio Moura
Prog Reviewer
4 stars Well, I heard high praising about those canadians first two albums, specially the second. But, to me, it didn´t work at the time I had the record. And since I had so many other CDs to listen, I just put it away and forgot about it. I remember once or twice going back to it and thinking it might be good and the problem might be I was not in the right mood to hear it. Whatever the reasons, it never clicked. But the same cannot be said of their live album. A friend brought it for me and I thought it would be interesting to hear them live. I was quite surprised!

The album was released in 1980 and shows the band playing in front of an english speaking audience (in Vancouver), but they only address them in french! Anyway, the crowd is respectful and the recording quality is top notch. The first two songs Comme un fou and Chanson Noire were not very convincing and made me think I would not like this CD either. Not that they are bad, no, but I didn´t like the former´s mix of styles too much, with too many time changes and moods shfiting too fast to fully enjoy it. The latter was just too jazzy and cheesy for my taste, with little or no prog, nor rock. the vocals are also quite different and takes some time to get used to (specially to the occasional scat singing).

But, from then on the album is simply superb! Terrific performances of all involved (absolute fantastic and skilful players), very good songwriting and incredible balanced sound. Their mix of rock, jazz, bossa nova, traditional french music, folk and symphonic prog is quite unique and very, very captivating. L´exil is one of the most poignant songs I´ve had ever heard. It is a pity that those guys broke up soon after this tour.

En torunée isa very powerful and surprising live album that shows how good those guys were on stage. If you´re looking for something different and very good, this is surely a CD to listen to. 4 strong stars.

Tarcisio Moura | 4/5 |

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