STADACONÉ

1. "Stadaconé" (10:19) While I don't like the bluesy-jazz guitar here, I like the easy funk jazz and clavinet coming from the rest of the band. They've definitely figured out how to get mainstream "hooks" in their music. The two keyboard artists are definitely the stars here! I love how the rhythm section slowly, almost imperceptively, pick up the speeds in the middle. Fun! (17.666667/20)

2. "Le Cosmophile" (5:43) more pop-friendly music that comes from a Todd Rundgren jazz-funk orientation. The first 80-seconds are a bit weird, but then the second motif brings us even closer to the funked up world of Todd Rundgren and particularly his UTOPIA incarnations. There's even a blazing smooth jazz saxophone à la DAVID SANBORN as well as a requisite Hammond solo. (8.875/10)

3. "Il faut sauver Barbara" (4:19) a little quirkier than the previous two songs though not so quirky as to fall into Canterbury territory. at the same time I feel as if the jerky song never really establishes flow nor resolution. (8.6666667/10)

4. "Ad hoc" (4:30) mouth-wah guitar and very busy funk keyboards (Fender Rhodes) and bass give this one more of the FOCUS sound and feel that I caught a little of on their previous album--here more like something off of Mother Focus or Focus Con Proby. Nice but nothing extraordinary. (8.75/10)

5. "La 'baloune' de Varenkurtel au Zythogala" (4:57) another song that starts out with a FOCUS-like sound palette but then goes the direction of Smooth Jazz artists like Ronnie Laws or Narada Michael Walden. However, I absolutely love the bird-like vocals with the bass, Fender Rhodes, and saxophone in the third minute--very HATFIELD AND THE NORTH-like. A fun and pleasantly engaging (if progressively simplistic) song. (8.875/10)

6. "Isacaaron (ou Le démon des choses sexuelles)" (11:22) a quirky-jerky song that plays out like a cross between a cerebral ELP piece mixed with a discordant RETURN TO FOREVER and one of those "unfinished" feeling FOCUS songs. (17.375/20)

Total Time 41:10

The music here is confident but definitely heading a little bit more toward the Smooth Jazz that will take over the Jazz-Rock Fusion movement in the next couple of years. It's clean and focused, the musicianship top notch, but feels as if the constructs are a bit watered down or smoothed out to make them more accessible to a larger audience.

B-/a low four stars; a well-engineered display and well-played album of proggy jazz-rock fusion that at times feels like an announcement that Smooth Jazz is here.

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