PROGRESSION BY FAILURE

Progression by Failure is a project started by a young French keyboardist named Nicolas Piveteau, who's influences range from 70's- and modern Prog Rock to Dark Metal.Born in 1981 and based in the city of Tours, Piveteau also plays guitars and drums and recorded his self-titled debut all by himself, a work released in 2009 on Musea Parallele.

Despite his young age, Piveteau was ready to meet the prog challenge with this release, not a single track is under 7 minutes and he even made an attempt to record a 20+ min. composition with the self-title piece.Young age and recording isolation has its good and bads though.Good thing is that Piveteau appears to be a trully gifted composer and performer, especially on keyboards and piano, which are the dominating instruments on the album.''Progression by Failure'' is loaded with synthesizers and comes as a really dense effort on dramatic, instrumental and modern Symphonic Rock, the easy comparison and influential guide would be E.L.P., but the music of Piveteau is often controlled by electronic snippets, while the the edgy and bombastic sound draws comparisons with acts like NEXUS or Japanese bands such as GERARD and ARS NOVA.Expect very few to zero Hammonds, Mellotrons or true Classical pinches in here though, the real treat is a full synthesizer sound, where pomposity and grandieur meet virtuosity.Piveteau's music is usually pounding and mascular, but there are often moments, when the gears are down and the material is more atmospheric than technical.Advantages can become disadvantages at the same time and the sharp synth-drenched stuff has resulted to a very digital sound, while the acoustics of the guitars, bass and drums are not fully convincing at the very end.There are rare melodies in here, but when present the material sounds excellent, very catharctic, ethereal and beautiful.Piano lines are also very nice and I would love to see Piveteau returning with a more melodious and keyboard-diverse sound in the future.

This is good to really nice modern Symphonic Rock with emphasis on keyboards, deep, almost cinematic atmospherics and technical accomplishment.Cool stuff for a one-man band effort, should be a great addition for all lovers of keyboard-based Symph Rock.Recommended.