LE CHARME DISCRET DE LA BOURGEOISIE

Heading to the mid-80's, the works of Namba were somewhat hard to categorize in terms of solo or band efforts.During the 1983-85 period he seems to have given emphasis to his regular efforts with Sense of Wonder, still he returned with the album ''Le charme discret de la bourgeoisie'' in 1985, released on the Air label under his own name.The main trio were again Kazuyuki Komuro on bass and Toru Soru on drums with no less than 7 musicians guesting on this one, among them was Jazz Fusion veteran Kazumi Watanabe, playing the acoustic guitar.

It appears that there was some fashion among Japanese Prog in the 80's bands to release works with epic or French titles (same thing happened with Mugen).Namba settled in a highly symphonic style with this album, which is still flavored by his love for poppy and romantic vocals, but stands out in terms of orchestrations and grandieur.We would like this work to be a bit more progressive, complex or bombastic, but even as it is ''Le charme discret de la bourgeoisie'' contains excellent moments of delicate, ethereal Symphonic Rock.Yes, it's fairly synth-driven with the supportive bass and drum parts, but this is not Neo Prog, it's more like a less emphatic version of MUGEN with an obvious Classical nature in the dreamy orchestral passages, there is even an appearance of Nakanishi Toshihiro's strings quartet in the album, which make the music come close to THE ENID's standards.Namba did not fully escape from the sound of his first few albums and certain tracks contain light Pop and AOR vibes, sounding too sweet overall.But his symphonic stuff is pretty excellent, just listen to ''Fantome d'opera'', which comes like a cross between GERARD and TERU'S SYMPHONIA, eventually some very bombastic Symph Prog with tremendous organ and synth twists and a few great guitar moves.The rest of these kind of pieces are rather melancholic/romantic arrangements, somewhere between MUGEN and DON AIREY's atmospheres, pretty cool and well-played.

Japanese Symphonic Rock from the mighty 80's, a bit stripped down to what prog fans are used to regarding bands from the country.Could be classified somewhere between THE ENID and DON AIREY.Nice, elegant and recommended music.