LES LARMES DU DALAÏ LAMA

This was their last studio album with the original line-up, but in fact it's not really an essential one of them. Some songs are not bad but not very special as well, quite rocking with some symphonic elements present like "Les Larmes Du Dalaï Lama", "Le Ballon De Billy" and "La Bête ". Others sound very pop-ish like "Tout Oublier", "Bonnet Rouge " and "Les Enfants Du Hasard". "Couleurs En Colère " is more like a rock ballade with acoustic guitar but good electric guitar parts as well and rather nice. This one and the longest track "Nonne Assistante À Personne À Tanger " are bit outstanding of the rest. As a summary "Les Larmes du Dalaï Lama" is probably not very interesting for Prog lovers in general, but it's still a good one of this great french band and worth to be checked out by all friends of french symphonic Prog. Good for 3 stars!!!!

After their classic album « le cimetière des arlequins » Christian Descamps and his musical tribe have recorded several concept albums based on a delicate, melodic, orchestrated progressive rock always putting the stress on an achieved sense of the lyrics. "Au delà du délire" is their second best effort. With this recent recording (after a late 80's re-birth) we clearly have the impression that the 70's belong to the past and that the musical feeling & writing disappear in a large part. The influence of "chanson française" is always characterised in a few melodic "pseudo-poetic" songs which currently gives a nice flavour to the ensemble, but here it's too much. The usual symphonic / progressive arrangements are exposed in a song as "la Bête" or "Nonne Assistante A Personne A Tanger". For the rest it's terribly dull and pop orientated, very far from the essence of complex, progressive rock music and really more into "variety", soft commercial music like ridiculous French singers know how to produce it. More often old dated and non-inspired. Go on their three first and forget the rest of the discography.

The ironic album cover by Phil Umbdenstock (inspired by a painting of Jerome Bosch called "La nef des fous = The ship of fools") is enticing, in the booklet you can find all the lyrics and some interesting drawings illustrating the songs but. The quality of the songwriting in my opinion is quite poor: there are no great tracks here and the music is more close to the genre called "variété française" than to the peculiar prog rock of Ange's early albums. There's no much to save in this album. Just some good melodic pop rock songs like "Le ballon de Billy" or "Les herbes folles" (song inspired by the book of J.-P. Germonville "Arthur R., voyou de Charleville", with the ghost of the poet Arthur Rimbaud hanging in the lyrics), the rest is very close to boredom. "Il faut tout oublier / Le présent, le passé, les lendemains. You have to forget everything / The past, the present and the days to come" (from "Tout oublier", one of weakest songs in this album). Ange here seem to have lost their way to prog, so I don't think that this album could be of some interest for a prog lover except collectors and die hard fans of the band.

Album released in 1992 "Les Larmes Du Dalai Lama". It is splendid, modern, symphonic rock. It became the fantastic world of ANGE by the singing voice of Christian Decamps though it was pop. The peculiarity symbolized in vocal gives musical undulation though a modern simple, lucid sound is worn. An elegant guitar of Jean-Michel Brezovar is wonderful. I think that a further shadow came up in a sensual chanson by this guitar's existing. Worth to be checked out by all fans of ANGE.

As I have been doing since my 200 th review, I always try and select a special album for special numbers. Since I am heading my six hundredth reviews on PA, I might maybe select not an incredible album but I will dedicate it to one of the bands I really appreciate. I have been reviewing their whole catalogue so far (as I have been doing for all the bands I have been reviewing so far, and the story is far from being over).

After having returned to their roots with their previous album "Sève Qui Peut", ordered by the French government for the ceremonies of the 250th anniversary of the Frenh revolution, Ange had to confirm. Like most of the bands I have reviewed so far, I have have been suffering quite a lot during Ange's eighties work. So, it was quite a surprise to discover "Sève". Only could I hope to get another good Ange record with this one.

Of course, we won't get a masterpiece like in their early days ("Caricatures", "Au Delà", Guet-Apens") but we are well above their extremely poor production from "Vu D'Un Chien" through "Tout Feu Tout Flamme". Since I am the only one on this site to have had the courage (and believe me I needed a lot) to have reviewed all of these albums, I can only be thankful to Ange to have continue their work and produced "Les Larmes Du Daï Lama".

Compositions are definitely more on the prog site. Nothing as such as "Moteur!", "La Gare De Troyes" etc. What we get here is of course a more rocking than progging Ange, but still : several songs are really cool. The title track of course, "La Bête", "Couleurs en Colère" for instance.

Lyrics are of course not on par any longer with the past ones. But who could align greater and crazier lyrics as Ange has done ? Nobody, I guess. The typical example being "Nonne Assistante À Personne En Danger". An incredible play on words, absolutely not understandable for a non-French native speaker (sorry guys...). We revert to the anti-clerical atmosphere of the early Ange. They also make a bit fun of the French colonial policy. The mood is rather anti-establishment. Hurray !!!

I wouldn't recommend this album to any newcomer to Ange to start with their work. Nonetheless, it is by far superior to their extremely poor eighties production. My favorite song, along with the title track is probably "Couleurs en Colère". A slow-beat rock song with complex and ambiguous lyrics.

There will be some disco beat songs, unfortunately like " Les Herbes Folles". But, hopefully this song will transport the listener into the prog mood as well as the hard-rock one. All in all, it is not a bad song. The closing number is very much rock-oriented.

Three stars for this album.