ODYSSÉES

I was not exaggeratedly enthusiastic about their debut album, and this follow-up effort is of no other texture. Quite conventional symph prog during the good opening number ("Eclipse") but the soufflé falls dramatically during the soft jazzy "Odysée". To tell you that the "lyrics" are rescuing this track is beyond my feeling.

Things get even worse when the next "tribal" tracks are under the laser of your CD player: if "Lithophonia" should have remained unreleased; I wouldn't have complained. "Message 95" starts almost the same, but fortunately it features some fine guitar break during the second half.

There are some improvements for "Où Vont les Amants » which is a fine and melodic track but vocals are almost not understandable (and I'm a French native speaker). Pleasant sax (very much Floydean-like) and moving piano are completing the picture. The closing guitar section is also very good and the whole is the best song available on this second album.

The new age oriented and long "Révolutions Des Oeillets" is a rather uniform and flat song. The acoustic "Nil" almost starts as "Jeux Interdits" and develops a fine mood even if not very personal. On the contrary, I am quite skeptic about "Invisible Links": the song evokes more Springsteen than prog (especially if you consider the vocal part).

The bonus tracks are not of great quality and can easily be skipped. As a conclusion, I can hardly rate this work with more than two stars.

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