AMPULLA MAGNIFYING

A French contemporary Progressive Rock band, started in 2007, following the will of guitarist/singer/composer Eric Lorcey to come up with complex rock music ideas.The original line-up included also drummer Christophe Cordier, bassist Colin Gentile, keyboardist Emma Hocquellet, vocalist Thomas Crauk, soon to be joined by flutist Natacha Vermeulan-Perdaen.After a year of touring Hocquellet, Crauk and Perdaen left the group and were replaced by Lise Cantin and Cecile Alves.Between October 08' and November 09' The Daedalus Spirit Orchestra recorded their debut ''Ampulla Magnifying'', mixed and produced by Lorcey himself and eventually released in 2009.

The Daedalus Spirit Orchestra's music is contemporary and highly eclectic Progressive Rock with a scope to keep distance from any 70's influences and finally deliver fresh and innovative music.Their style is really hard to categorize, it contains elements from Fusion, Progressive Metal, Symphonic Rock, Psychedelic Rock and Folk with a bit of an Indie Rock feeling on the English-sung vocal parts.The compositions are quite long and extremely complex with lack of serious melodies and a huge amount of time signatures, frequent tempo changes, rapid accelerations and decelerations and generally tons of adventurous and complicated themes.Still there is a bit of a dreamy atmosphere in some vocal parts.All these elements are delivered through a frenetic rhythm section, an impressive flutist with some excellent performances, Lorcey's punchy guitars and expressive vocals and a talented keyboardist.There are also some good mellower passages, but overall the music sounds too dense for its own good, making the album a bit of an unfair listening and at moments forgettable.However there are plenty of interesting parts contained in here, which are either an impressive groove or some fantastic interplays or even an excellent flute drive by Lise Cantin.

The Daedalus Spirit Orchestra is an extremely talented young band, no question about it.But it seems their music desperately needs some room to breathe.A more balanced style would definitely give them the appropriate spark among prog listeners.Even so the very rich and energetic stuff of ''Ampulla Magnifying'' comes warmly recommended.