SI ON AVAIT BESOIN D'UNE CINQUIÈME SAISON

The thought of French lyrics and the "folk" tag prejudiced me against this album...my loss; how wrong I was to have avoided this. Full of gentle, subtle melodies and arrangements, it's one of the few albums that truly successfully marries acoustic and electronic instruments.

"Vert" the opener is the most straightforward song on the album; "Dixie" that follows is a little gem, with clarinet (I think!) and percussion leading a merry jig. "Depuis L'automne" is the first track with longer instrumental breaks, a foretaste of the final track, "Histoires Sans Paroles", divided into a number of movements , with dream like sections with wonderful melodies, that give up more on each repeated listening. This is the centrepeice of the album.

The range of instruments is wide - from Mellotron to woodwind - but all used thoughtfully, and without exception played superbly. Heck, I even found myself humming along to the accordion at the end of "En Pleine Face", and wishing for more!

My only criticism is not the music itself, but that I think the production of this CD could do with a complete re-mastering to bring out the very best in the music.

If anyone says to you that prog stands for bombast and can't convey emotion, this is an album that refutes that. The term "masterpeice" is over-used but I really think it applies here. A treasure. Please put it in your collection!