MASAL

It's hard to find albums that really freeze the soul with a powerful, beautiful and an almost perfect musical proposal. But 1982 Jean Paul Prat "Masal" reach the goal with a superb masterpiece hard to define because the eccelctic mixture of genres and styles that build this magical album.

"Masal" is a 40+ minutes epic where the listener slides from one style to another: zeuhl, jazz- rock, symphonic prog, folk and many other gives form to an impressive piece that reminds som of the best Mike Oldfield moments but try to imagine that picture including the complete cast of Magma (including cathartical chorus), some Yes sections, delicate drops of avant garde, some jazzy passages and furious epical sequences... Not bad, eh? Well, Prat make that possible just in this long, excentric, exciting suite which, IMHO, it has to be one of the best prog songs ever.

But there is more. The so called second part of this album has four songs between 4 and 15 minutes long. All of them are great too: exquisite arrangements, fluid changes from one genre to another and atmospherical sections. "Maran Atha-Seláh" is closer to jazz-rock but also to the jazzy-zeuhl experiments such as Eider Stellaire. "Messagers de Norte-Dame" repeats the jazzy formula but flirting with the avant garde a la Tiemko. The dark "Vals Funebre" is a nostalgic and sad piece leaded by piano and sax and at the end, appears the tribal "Origines", a floating piece with an awsome but simple work on chorus...

A missing piece into the prog rock history. It deserves more attention from the fans and music lovers in general because is a wonderful piece of music which has in it all the elements that define prog music... 5* without any hesitation...