DANTE'S INFERNO

Here is a little progressive nugget from Holland whose theme is Dante's 'Divina Comedia'. Although not as dark as you would expect, the music is nevertheless quite dramatic and faintly reminiscent of DAVID BOWIE and PETER GABRIEL. It does, however, have a quality of its own, thanks in part to some catchy hooks and to BRASSÉ's unique vocals. Unfortunately, about one third of the 17 tracks are what I would call 'transition noises'; so I'll concentrate on the others.

The album opens with "Love & Hate", a tune with a pulsating, disjointed beat, ARENA style; unfortunately, however, it soon degenerates into a very average ballad. The ominous "Vigil" follows where BRASSÉ steps in with his 'satanic' vocals, a bit like STEVE HACKETT's on "The Devil Is an Englishman". Then comes "Follow Me Down" with some catchy, almost disco beat, and the instrumental "Inferno" which would would fit in perfectly onto an AYREON album. This is where the CD starts to get interesting. "Dante - The Pit" is a throbbing piece with a crisp, prominent drum play. 'Paolo and Francesca" is a simple but effective ballad with an interesting exchange of male and female vocals. "Sharks & Herrings" and "Betrayal" are both a little weird (imagine yourself finger-popping on some machine-gun drumming - hard to explain, really). "Lucifer" is a hellish vocal piece with an African beat and some female wailing in the background (another weird one!); the voice is faintly reminiscent of Clare Torry on PINK FLOYD's "Dark Side of the Moon". The track "Beatrice" reminds me a lot of the FLOYD's "Comfortably Numb". Finally, the album closes with a short but nostalgic instrumental with a strong 'CAMEL' feel to it. This is far from a masterpiece and I would gladly have welcomed a fuller production; nevertheless, it's worth seeking out because it truly stands on its own.

Mid-90's found Marc Brasse in a workaholic period.Not only he was working on the next Brasse album, but he also set the process to establish his own record label.Eventually LaBraD'or Records, based in Apeldoorn, came to life and Brasse's third album ''Dante's Inferno as performed by Brasse'' was its first release in 1997, an ambitious concept work, where Brasse recruited female vocalist Leny Caanen along with the usual suspect Maarten Huiskamp on bass and guitars.

The familiar sound of the band is still there, but this time Brasse seems to have lose much of its grandiosity and unique inspiration.The album is split in 17 pieces with its ups and downs with Brasse trying to capture a unique personal approach on the concept , alternating between different moods and atmospheres, always under the Neo Prog umbrella.The result though is an album of inconsistency, with some tracks sounding a bit cheesy or uninspired, sometimes having a too mechanical keyboard sound or uninteresting electronic effects like the horrible sampled flutes.The vocals of the album range from angry performances to sweet deliveries, depending on the track.However Brasse never stopped to be an incredible composer and thus you can still find pieces with bombastic keyboard parts, great guitar hooks and plenty of symphonic grandieur.And like in ''Pawn'' there are melodic symphonic passages mixed with powerful bombastic keyboard parts to satisfy the prog listener, just to make you a bit nostangic over the previous album.

Maybe Brasse's definite Neo Prog approach on a concept like this was not the right choice, but if you skip this fact, this album is still a good effort among the genre's releases, with interesting keyboard, vocal and guitar parts, though a bit flat at moments.Recommended.