NEGATIVE ZONE

It takes some time to get there actually. The first three short tracks are totally useless: mostly grotesque (in the ''Grobschnitt'' sense of the term) for both ''Overture'' and ''Cats'', while ''Stack'' is a spacey electronic track with no texture, experimental.

Things get better with ''Don't Sleep'' which can be considered as the first true song from this album. The band is investigating more traditional atmospheres and the tranquil and acoustic start builds up nicely. A gentle piece of aerial music which turns into an ''Echoes'' clone for the closing section (you know, the long sidereal middle part of this gigantic epic).

If you consider that the second leg of this song is pretty decent (even vocals are OK here), you'll have about an idea of this album: here and there some well constructed music, but most of the time it sounds completely chaotic and loose (''Who We Are'').

Almost all songs (except three) are on the very short end (less than three minutes). I'm not saying that long tracks are per se better but at least it allows to develop a little more and it could have avoided to bear some old fashioned tune like ''Farewell'' (I bet you!). It is even more childish than any of the songs from ''Piper''. Floyd were pioneering with ''Piper''. Almost forty years later, ''Negative Zone'' (they opted for this name.) doesn't add any particular flavour even if the second half of a song as ''Fly Away'' is pleasant.

A later Floyd can be appreciated during the second ''long'' track from this album (just over 4'30''). ''Hold Out Your Hand'' is a typical Gilmour oriented song and features a basic structure: acoustic start which ends up into a more ''dynamic'' electric solo. The whole remains mellow but fine though.

Even if this album sounds too much of the same (''Island''), it is excellent for relaxation. So, sit back and tranquilize (''Fairy Tales''). Should there be any future for this band (they are apparently working on a second album), they should maybe concentrate in expanding their own musical ideas or dig more in the direction of the closing and title track.

I don't appreciate this album very much; just average. Five out of ten.

Stylistically the material on the album is strongly influenced by late 60s/early 70s Pink Floyd. I generally don´t like using the word clone, but it´s obvious that Negative Zone kneel at the alter of the "Atom Heart Mother". It´s however not the first impression you get when the opening carnival introduction track "Ouverture" plays, but when "Cats" starts you´re transported right back to the sound of Pink Floyd´s debut full-length studio album "The Piper at the Gates of Dawn" (1967). However the remaining tracks on the album have more in common with the next couple of Pink Floyd albums (up until about 1973). Mellow, laid-back, psychedelic space rock/progressive rock which is slow building and atmospheric. The vocals are well performed, sedated, and often features harmonies.

Pink Floyd isn´t the only influence as heard on "Who We Are", Negative Zone have also been listening to King Crimson and their more heavy avant garde approach to playing progressive rock. While borrowing from two progressive rock legends doesn´t make the music featured on this album any more unique sounding, at least it means that there´s some diversity to be found.

Negative Zone features a well sounding production, which suits the material well. Little details could have been better, but it´s exactly that...details. Overall "Negative Zone" is a decent quality debut album, and if you can see past the "in your face" influences, it´s probably an even greater album. A 3 star (60%) rating is warranted.

Well, it is unquestionable that Pink Floyd's influence is very, very vast, reaching from punk rock (well, the punks hated Pink Floyd, so that IS some kind of influence nevertheless) to extreme metal, passing through pop rock, prog rock and many others only on the rock genre. This french band right here is clearly one of many band influenced by Pink Floyd, since they care to sound floydian since the very beginning of the album (well, in fact the music only REALLY starts in the second song, but who is counting?), reaching from the psychedelic rock (like the song Cats) to the long and synth dominated space rock songs (like the Don't Sleep songs and the Negative Zone song).

In fact, this is basically a vintage album that reproduces with stunning perfection the psychedelic music if the late 60's and the early 70's. However, this is, at the same time, the biggest virtue and the biggest flaw of the album: the music presented here is terrific but it is very derivative and emulative. But since the big bands of the genre, such as Pink Floyd, Eloy and Hawkwind, will not release any new albums soon or have not released a very good album is some time, Negative Zone homonym album will have to do the work for the eager fans of the space rock genre.

About the songs, musicianship and other features there are some thing i would like to state:

These french guys can sure deliver some good music on their debut, but it is not very challenging music. if you are used to this king of music you will sure like this band and there are no extremely difficult or technical parts here and, because of that, there are no display of exceptional musicianship. The lyrics are pure nonsense, just psychedelic talk.

Grade and final thoughts

Well, if like Pink Floyd and psychedelic rock in general, this album is for you. Very good music but they unfortunately emulate Floyd way too much, stopping me from giving them the 5 star grade. In fact, the 4 star grade may be considered way too generous, but i think they deserve this grade.

In fact, the whole sound if floydian. I guess that the main influence comes from Dark Side Of The Moon.. From those olden times, when David Gilmour was young, and when Syd Barret was alive, and well and living in.

Cats sounds like Money. These harmonies.. It feels like they came from the past, took new clothes and are now walking beside us. And we shake our heads. Damn, we think. It is more likely Floyd!

Then NEGATIVE ZONE begins to feed us with space theme. More frustrating, than relaxing, in fact. It matters, if the whole energy of song is not.. positive? Yes. It is not positive. It is like a cold winter evening, like a gray sky.

And than comes the masterpiece, which is separated with.. something strange. Something like innuendo. And this masterpiece is Dont sleap, pt. 1. Well, we could hear the floydian influence on vocal parties, as well as on guitar minor harmonies.. It is a bit smell from Another Brick In The Wall.

Well, NEGATIVE ZONE is a very talented band. And they are good students.. And their teacher, PINK FLOYD, is great.

Good choise for all Floyd fans.

The intro of the album take us into a fantasy world that reminds Pink Floyd's early days. Exellent tracks like "Don't sleep" (part 1/2) have great power and are very beautiful, the "Farewell" is a kind of lullaby song that make anyone dream and "Negative Zone" blows everything with a great organ's intro and guitar solo in the midlle (in Atom Heart Mother style) . The Negative Zone band entered in my private top ten and they let me in a urge to wait for a next album! I give him four stars because this is a excellent addition to any prog music collection. Very good for Floyd's listeners.

"The Stack" is a short instrumental that is a little creepy to begin with. Lots of atmosphere while late in the song it gets chaotic and louder. "Don't Sleep Part 1" is a great track ! My favourite. Spacey synths, strummed guitar and Gilmour-like vocals. Love the organ that comes in at 3 1/2 minutes. A dead calm arrives 6 minutes in, it becomes quite haunting, and at the seven minute mark it is even MORTE MACABRE-like. "Who Are We" has a nice heavy sound. The tempo picks up as the angular guitar comes and goes.The melody stops 3 minutes in as we get lots of atmosphere to the end of the song. "Farewell" has a line in it that goes "...see you soon on the dark side of the moon". I've heard that somewhere before I think ? The song itself sounds like it came off the "Meddle' album.

"Fly Away" has a great sound to it once it kicks in. Heavy psychedelic. "Don't Sleep Part 2" has a fantastic organ intro and the vocals may be at their best here.The guitar seems to echo. This song reminds me of the band FIRST BAND FROM OUTER SPACE. "Hold Out Your Hand" is another good track, it's gentle, fragile, beautiful with Gilmour-like guitars. "Island" is similar as well, soft vocals and flute added too. The song "Negative Zone" is rather atmospheric, and it intensifies at the six minute mark with some energetic drumming and great guitar.

If your a fan of early PINK FLOYD this album was made for you !

The areas that I find so refreshing about both band and album are the easy feel and flow it takes and how quickly the listening experience goes by. Unlike bands like RPWL, who I also enjoy but see a more tribute-like sound rather than a band that happens to make music that reminds, which to my way of thinking is a big difference.

The vocals are excellent and atmospheres work within the spacy, yet technically capable range which many bands I've paid attention to tend to over-extend. Without trying to preach, it is fairly easy to learn flashy riffs and soloing but is vastly harder to play as an ensemble while working in modern sounding arrangements that borrow only for those familiar to some of the themes and progressions older bands used and made familiar.

To me, this only says that certain ideas, no matter the performer, work well in general and if played to the quality Negative Zone plays at will always sound good. Better yet is the glimmer of the band's own style; something younger or less PF interested fans will appreciate for the quality of music and execution it is.

While not a masterpiece, I'd reccomend Negative Zone to almost any fans of rock, prog, or contemporary music. This is a wonderfully enjoyable band to listen to, filled with lots of straightforward curves in composition and easy to digest vocals and melodicly, sometimes technically oriented music.

4.5 stars!!

Though being really not original nor innovative at all NEGATIVE ZONE's debut is hard to be pulled down. It's certainly a very good album, maybe even to be called excellent and a very pleasant listen but nevertheless far from being a masterpiece, at least within progressive rock and that is what we're dealing with on this site. Actually in a way it sounds almost like a musical trip through the history of Pink Floyd starting from the early psychedelic days ("Cats") to spacey gilmourish guitar lines ("Fly Away"), even Cédric Cartaut's vocals sound very similar. Just the fact that these are all really their own compositions saves them from being not more than an (admitedly) excellent cover band. Nevertheless they're carrying their influences "on the sleeve" for sure and most probably they will be always be remembered as a PF clone band later on for this. Let's hope for these guys that I'm wrong and they're going to have a brilliant future with many more good and more original releases. At least from the point of musicianship they're excellent and if they manage to find their very own self-contained style they could really become a great and essential band in progressive rock one day.

Though most probably it will not be an all-time-fav of mine (this has to be proved by the test of time) I like this album especially its second half having the much stronger tracks. But since I usually do not EVERYTHING I like necessarily with 4 or 5 stars and rather depend my decision upon the overall historical importance of an album I'm giving it "only" a 3-star rating. Moreover I've got the impression it's been slightly overrated by Floyd fans in particular.