OUTVADERS

11 years after the debut, this is the 6th album of the French multi-instrumentist Jean Marc Corvisier, aka Jaz. On this album his sound seems to try taking a direction. There's less guitar and more electronics. The sounds are spacey but the melodies are sometimes too simple. I think there's a clear influence of Peter Bardens and Alan Parsons. There are ups and downs even in the same track: as example, Decadence is made of fur different sections, the second and the fourth sound trivial to me, the second is quite childish, but the third is very good.

How can I decide whether I like it or not, globally? I think it depends on the amount of good and trivial parts. Cyber Opus is quite good but not exciting. Good as comment of a documentary, I'd say...but it's just the first part. It suddenly changes into something dark. The melody is similar to the previous part, but it's dissonant. Then it flows into another section partially melodic which ends into a relaxing nice keyboard layer.

The title track reminds closely the style of Peter Bardens, especially in the sounds. A good one. Then come the 11 minutes of "Welcome to Voyager". It's very spacey so I suppose the Voyager of the title is that Voyager which has recently left the Solar System. Less major chords make it sound closer to my personal tastes.

"Lost Contact", the final track, is another quite good instrumemtal reminding of Tangerine Dream, mainly because of the non-invasive guitar a la Edgar Froese.

So, it's not an exciting album but is neither bad, and all the Jaz production is available on Bandcamp as "Name your price". Give it an ear.