PROCRÉATION

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A year after releasing the classic album "La Marche Des Hommes", Canada's MORSE CODE released another masterful concept album titled "Procreation". Following very closely their patented formula of progressive rock, this album will simply make all prog fans drool. Imagine a blend of HACKETT'esque guitar swoops with lots of beautiful mellotron/organ, creative bass and drum interplay and highly imaginative song writing and you have "Procreation". MORSE CODE is really a perfect marriage of classic ANGE with GENESIS ! Vocals are sung in French and really remind me of the theatrical presence of Christian Decamps (ANGE's vocalist). This album showcases the epic 26+ minute epic title piece which blends a highly British 70's prog character with their unique Québécois flavour. Overall another killer album that everyone needs to have in their collection... absolutely essential album !

4.5 stars really!!!

MC's second album of their second incarnation (MCT being the first) is the band's apex in their career. Following their Marche Des Hommes album's breakthrough, the group began touring all over Quebec and eastern Canada with harmonium, Offenbach and Octobre. Gradually they started introducing new tracks to their repertoire, most of which wouyld come to fruition on this album, including the 26-mins Procreation and its intro. They released a non-album single which find its way on here in terms of bonus tracks, on this first real Cd re-issue by the great team ProgQuebec. So the album got released at the end of the 76 summer and gets a fully respected re-issue with great bonus tracks, great live photos (one can see they had a few years on their colleagues, too) and re-printed lyrics.

Right off the opening Procreation prelude/intro, one can hear they the group has climbed up one more flight of stairs to prog heaven as the instrumental lead-off, even if it hints a bit at Genesis, is a fantastic piece of keyboard-led prog, from organs, mellotrons and piano to flutes and others. While many groups from La Belle Province chose the joual alternative, MC tried to be as neutral as possible, while remaining resolutely Quebecois, and the great "Qu'Est-Ce Que T'es Venu Faire Ici?" is the perfect example of this and a wink to their earlier album's other track. Again a mega-Genesis feel, but nothing shocking, either. Nuages is a very much a classical organ intro, before the group takes things a step higher, but remaining a full speed organ thing over great back up. While the following play on word Eau Tonne (Autumn) is another semi-Quebecois/French dilemma but over a Fender Rhodes. A much-superior "Hauts Et Ha!" duplicates the fun play on words, but the album takes a risk at plunging into music hall-type as Charles Trenêt or Maurice Chevalier, if it wasn't for the great instruments playing behind it. More of the Same for Pays Du Monde, with a good dose of cheesiness to top it all off.

And then comes the flipside with its sidelong self-tiled epic, which from the first notes sends you out in Nirvana-land, where outsider Robitaille's lyrics are grabbing you by the throat. The epic is of great quality and mixes subtlety with adventures, and the lengthy slow 2/3rd of time passage is a pure joy even if it is a bit déjà-vu.

As for the two bonus tracks, they were rumored to aim at the disco market (as they had previously done with Cocktail), but believe me, you'd have a hard time guessing this was supposed to win over the dance floors, even if they are funked-up. Both compositions are instrumentals, up-tempoed and up-lifting

The group will then start a monster 65 dates eastern Canada (this writer remembers having to pass up on concert tickets for lacks of means, having invested in a hi-fi chain) throughout four provinces, with extended lightshow, explosives and full theatrics, soon pushing them to refuse opening acts or headliners, due to their show's complexity. Having avoided Montreal and Quebec City (hoping to finish triumphantly there), the group ended up exhausted and wearied by their shot at bigger times.

The apparent humor and other lyrical themes of this album are unfortunately lost on non-French speakers. But the fast-paced if occasionally pedantic keyboards overcome that drawback for the most part.

As a kid in northern Montana I seem to remember these guys having some very brief popularity under the name Morse Code Transmission. It wasn’t all that unusual for us to be exposed to quite a bit of Canadian music though, and I’ve read these guys toured a lot back then, so I suppose it’s possible they appeared somewhere in our general vicinity like in Alberta or Saskatchewan or something. Not sure, but I definitely remember this album cover because it kind of creeped me out.

But by this time their sound had moved away from that early seventies harder rock/psych sound and into this Harmonium-like Francoprog thing, and any appeal they had to mountain hicks was largely lost.

The organ and mellotron make the album, but I personally have never been able to get too excited about this kind of understated, pristine type of sound. The instrumental passages seem to drag on forever, often with little variation and meaningless repetition of mostly organ sequences that just don’t grab me at all.

The lengthy three-part title track offers a fair bit of dynamic electric guitar around the middle, but here again the organ goes for long stretches of repetitive playing, shifting tempo and key only to drift into another repetitive progression. There’s some Banks- like styling here I suppose, but the French singers don’t come even close to comparing to the dynamic presence of Peter Gabriel. This whole back side of the album really reminds me quite a bit of innumerable and forgettable mid-seventies pretentious pop bands.

So I think I’ll give this two stars since there seems to be adequate evidence that fans of the band and this style of symphonic prog seem to appreciate the album. Not my thing, but if you’re into bands like Harmonium and milder and more ethnic Genesis clones you might get into this.

peace

The province of Quebec just seems to be more artistic than the rest of Canada. How else do you explain the healthy Prog scene that seemed to flourish there in the seventies. So many great bands from this province and MORSE CODE were definitley near the top of that list. I have enjoyed this album so much.The bass is probably my favourite thing about it followed by the mellotron and drumming.The sound is crisp and the music is quite powerful and dynamic. Check out the freaky album cover as well.

"Precreation" builds until it's full with some good pulsating organ. It settles with flute before 2 minutes then kicks back in just like before.The guitar 3 minutes in sounds really good. Mellotron before 4 minutes. "Qu'est-Ce T'es V'nu Faire Ici" opens with guitar and spacey sounds.Vocals and a beat take over. It kicks in before a minute. Organ too. Contrasts continue.The guitar solo after 3 minutes is excellent. Mellotron follows. "Nuage" is an instrumental just like the opening track. Organ to start then it kicks in before a minute. Chunky bass too. It settles back with organ to end it. "L'eau Tonne" is kind of lazy with vocals. The bass is powerful though. Keyboards 2 minutes in as the vocals stop briefly. "Des Haunts It Des Ha !..." opens with organ as loud outbursts including drums come and go. Vocals join in. The organ sections are powerful.The vocals are far from it though. Haha. Synths before 3 minutes.

"De Tous Les Pays Du Monde" starts with organ and reserved vocals. Drums after 1 1/2 minutes. The vocals become more passionate then we get a full sound with mellotron. Powerful stuff. The title track is divided into three parts and is a side long suite. "Procreation I" opens with guitar as drums,bass and organ join in. Reserved vocals follow. It picks up with pulsating organ and drums. Chunky bass too. A fantastic rhythm section here. Mellotron before 4 minutes and the guitar follows. Themes are repeated then it turns spacey and blends into "Procreation II". It kicks in at a minute. Killer sound. It then settles back with mellotron.Vocals before 3 minutes. A calm before 4 1/2 minutes. Fragile vocals join in. It kicks back in before 6 minutes. Nice drum work here then the vocals return. Mellotron to end it as "Procreation III" arrives. The organ and sound to start sounds Swedish but that changes quickly when the vocals arrive. I like the synths after 3 minutes, they remind me of RUSH. Mellotron follows. It kicks back in after 6 minutes then the vocals return. A great rhythm here.

Just an incredible album that I can't recommend enough.

Well, I had never heard of this obscure symphonic band from Canada until recently. I was surprised with the high ratings I found here on PA and I begun to seek one of their CDs until I finally found this Procréation. When I started to listen to it I had a quite bad first impression: it sounded good musically although lacking any original ideas. The first track, Précréation, for exemple is an instrumental that sounds like a mix of Genesis, Yes and Focus. It is ok, but a bit too short for this kind of music. The remaining tunes followed suit although some parts are downright bad (Des Hauts et des Ha!). It seems the lyrics have a kind of quirk type of humor, but since I know very little french I got nothing of their meaning. Vocals are average.

The highlights of this CD to me are the two last tracks: De Tous Les Pays du Monde is an early Genesis carbon copy alright, yet I loved it because it is so well written and performed. The 25 minute title track is another one that grabed my atention because it followed the symphonic rock cliches in almost every single aspect. It should be a great work, but although I found nothing wrong in it, it also failed to generate any real excitement or enthusiasm. It´s the kind of song you like it when you hear but you don´t actually want to listen to it all over again once it is finish, if you know what I mean. There are far better symphonic epics out there, specially at the time of this release. Small wonder they never really made it.

Production is quite good and the my CD copy sounds very clear and crisp.

Rating: I found Procréation very hard to give a fair rating. The musicians are very skillful and if you like old fashioned symphonic prog rock chances are you might like this record. After several spins over a month period I found that the CD has its merits. It is good, alright. Sometimes even very good, but not enough to warrant an excelent (4 star) rating like many of my fellow reviewers did. So I guess it is a matter of taste. Listen and judge for yourself.