NEBELNEST

What's to say about this band that I had discovered some 48 hours before seeing them in concert and that very same concert happened during one of those rare Blizzards in the Ardennes. Already warned by hearing the album only twice before the given concert, I was not all that well prepared to see/hear them live, especially having driven 260 Km to get there and back. The opening act No Name (from neighbouring Luxembourg being a no-show), Nebelnest took the stage much earlier than planned, but what a slap they gave the rare public that did show up that night. Actually they sounded very much like their debut album and served us a fairly basic lightshow with hand held slides about space and Maya or Aztec mythology, and it simply flattened us for the final count to ten.

Dense, dark and urgent, NeBeLNeST is a heavy French prog-rock outfit that throws all their influences into a giant cauldron and their music transpires from the simmering brew attacking our very senses, blending dark Crimsonian improvs (Asbury Park from the Live USA album is never far away), fiery drumming, flaming psychedelic guitar mastery, a Zeuhlian bass and underlined by Tejedor's keyboard layers. The voyages they invite us in wander through the Ozrickian galaxy, sometimes firing a laser beam into the RIO black hole. Yes, this spaceship is dedicated to sombre powers that can resembles some of those Aztec divinities necessitating renewed sacrifices that can only cost you neurones, fried by the burning progressive arrows that follow unexpected trajectories dictated by the constant rhythm explorations, outlined by a a very Present Trigaux piano.

Most of the tracks on this album are pure improvs (even if the crew only admit to three of them) and those that aren't, don't last long enough to avoid space jams, barely escaping RIO meteorites trajectories, sliding between Kraut debris, Kobaiain red stars and avant-prog supernova's explosions, but retaining some kind of impact of their obstacle course. Difficult to describe the tracks other than what I've done

In a way Nebelnest is the latest French version of Crimsonoïd prog after the different generations such as Shylock (late 70's), Xaal (late 80's and early 90's) and Quebec's Pangée (mid 90's). And as such, they are very much the better of these groups also and present a bright nebula for the future. Very much worth the investment, this debut album being the mandatory introduction passage to their Universe.