THE RIGHTS OF SPRING

Here is another album by this prolific French prog rock/jazz artist, that seems to be piggybacking upon the relative success of the prior album 'Always And Forever'. Always a musician that one can expect to reinvent himself on an almost constant basis, Gramond makes less of a clear jump with this one, instead taking one element of the relatively diverse past album and flesh it out into something less over the place. What has resulted is not an album that is stronger than 'Always And Forever', but instead a piece of work that focuses its efforts on the less interesting side of Gramond's work thus far.

That side turns out to be the rather banal classic organ rock Gramond dabbled in earlier works. Sounding a bit like the Doors with far weaker vocals, Gramond hasn't been a big pleaser when it comes to his more rock-based work, but he has shown potential, from an instrumental standpoint. While 'The Rights Of Spring' is certainly the most consistent of the classic rock releases, it feels in many ways like one of the poorer ones, due to a few highly annoying traits the music has.

Firstly should come as no surprise to anyone that has heard early Sébastien Gramond before, but the vocals here have gone back from being mediocre, to being poor again. Gramond is unfortunately not a skilled singer and sings in an off-key yowl that isn't pleasant to lsiten to at all. This is made all the more of a shame due to the great talent that's evident in the way he plays the guitar. Bearing a stark resemblance in sound to that of a blues player, he really manages to belt out some great solos and technical work throughout the album that is worth an intent listen.

One final remark that makes the album less successful (or more successful, in some proggers' eyes) is the fact that the musical highlight of the album 'Desrever Edalam Tnemetelpmoc' has large sections that sound like a note-for-note reconstruction of King Crimson's famous classic track '21st Century Schizoid Man'. Everything from the grimy guitars to the chord production to the drum fills make the impression highly vivid that Gramond is trying to piggyback on that song's success.

'The Rights Of Spring' unfortunately isn't a bright moment for Gramond, although there's much hope yet for the future.