ANNA'S REVOLUTION

Puzzle King is a project started by French multi-instrumentalist Fran'ois Puzenat in 2009. Fran'ois not only wrote the lyrics, script, and music for the concept album, Anna's Revolution, but he also plays guitars, keyboards, and sings, and he programmed the drums for the album as well. The album features a few musical guests as well: Nathalie Prost on bass, Yannick Thinon on trombone, and Pierre Fournier on clarinet. The plot of the concept album Anna's Revolution takes place between 1913 and 1917 during the Russian Revolution. The two main characters, Anna and Anatoli, are trying to preserve their love in spite of the war and revolution going on around them, and the extremism that are a result.

As far as musical style, Fran'ois himself describes the project as having its roots set in the 70's with the foliage spreading into modern influences. The style comes off as more symphonic, and a bit eclectic. Mr. Puzenat mentions a number of influences, including more classic influences such as Genesis, King Crimson, Yes, Saga, and more modern influences like Anathema, Pain of Salvation, Sylvan, The Mars Volta, Blind Ego, Lazuli, and Nemo. Along with these very wide spread influences, I felt like I could also hear some influence from the Beatles at times. All of these influences come together for a very unique and eclectic style that I found very engaging and interesting, and as such I would recommend the album as worthwhile to many Prog fans out there.

Originally written for www.seaoftranquility.org