L'HIRONDELLE

This is the album that convinced me to quit trying to review French-language music. I don’t understand a lick of it, and even when trying to discern/translate some of the lyrics the idioms and nuances are unfortunately lost. I get that most of these seem to be traditional folk tunes, but really that doesn’t help much since those are the kinds of songs most likely to have difficult-to- understand idioms.

The one thing that surprised me was the occasional emergence of electronic keyboards. Also I’m not sure what’s going on with the (obligatory) flute, but it sounds very tinny and strangely amplified. Not unpleasant, but definitely unusual.

The harmonies are pleasant enough to listen to, but if you can’t follow the lyrics then you tend to notice more that they veer closely to barbershop quartet territory at times, and particularly on “Automne” and “La Payse”.

With apologies to our French members, the spoken tracks like “La Dame des Landes” remind me of a cross between the wonderful Armando Tirelli ‘La Profeta’ album and an Inspector Clouseau dream sequence. All in good humor.

“l'hirondelle” has some beautiful acoustic guitar on the other hand, and “La Dames Des Landes” ends with a synth swirl that’s pretty unusual for a folk album.

So I’m not writing this to take shots at the album, nor to promote it since my listening skills give me no ability to judge a musical work without a clear understanding of its lyrics and meaning. The point is more to raise awareness than “Asgard” was a fairly common band name at one time, and unless you are a French-speaking folk prog fan then it is highly likely this isn’t the Asgard you are looking for. As prog folk it is mildly adventurous, but for the most part seems to fall along fairly traditional folk lines. For that I’ll say two stars and take my leave.

peace

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