L'ÉCHELLE DU DÉSIR

For French band Jack Dupon it all started in 2001, when drummer Thomas Larsen met guitarist Gregory Pozzoli and bassist Arnaud M'Doihoma at college, forming an early jamming trio.2004 sees the addition of another guitarist, Philippe Prebet, and the quartet launches his first ever live appearance in June of the same year.Jack Dupon started gigging at a constant basis both in France and abroad, participating in contests and even came up with a self-production CD in 2006, recorded in their own studio.In 2008 the band signs a contract with Musea and eventually a second, more professional work sees the light the same year on Musea's Zeuhl/Rio/Avant Prog specialized sub-label Gazul, entitled ''L'échelle du désir''.

The album is dominated by two very long compositions, ''La trilogie des mouches'' and ''L'homme à la jambe qui boit'', clocking totally at over 53 minutes (!!!), next to three more shorter cuts.The style of the band is really hard to describe, quite personal, but also very hard to follow.Guitar-dominated mostly instrumental music with over the top aggressive theatrical vocals here and there, characterized by dark grooves, divided into low- and up-tempo rhythms.Both the longer compositions are raw examples of guitar workouts with an evident KING CRIMSON-vibe, offering plenty of breaks, solos, dual interplays and jams, always under a very dark-sounding mood.Bass lines are really heavy along with some powerful and pounding drumming.The shorter cuts do not at all.However the lack of some extra instrumentation along with the similarity of the compositions make this CD quite monotonous along the way.And while the concept of blending these guitar performances with some excessive vocal parts seems decent and far from cliche, the album is too long and repetitive for its own sake.

''L'échelle du désir'' ends up to be a questionable experiment.It will possibly leave satisfied the narrow limited base of KING CRIMSON-alike bands worldwide, but it is difficult to be appreciated by a wider audience due to its one-dimensional sound.