BRUISED SKY

WE ARE KIN is a Crossover Prog quartet from Manchester, founded in 2013 by GARY BOAST and DAN ZAMBRAS who created their first livery in 2015, the concept album PANDORA. They came together around a common passion ... the love of progressive music and a great admiration for the GENESIS group. But nothing here closely resembles "Firth of Fifth" or "Supper's Ready". Their new album "Bruised Sky" does not claim any concept, but offers us a surprising and avant-garde music without real equivalent. The musical bases are, so to speak, planted in an equilateral triangle comprising Electro Prog, Soul and Trip Hop. "Circles" begins calmly with futuristic-looking synths, hooked by a distant female voice seeming to come from the east. This song becomes jazzy and becomes recital, with this evidence that the artist is at the center of all interests. A brilliant piano accompanies repetitive feminine chants with redundant vibratos, then Techno keys and two-tone keyboards give a little sparkle to this ambient monotony. But this introspective grayness resumes its course and ends like notes tapping inside a bubble, leaving a taste of unfinished ... (6/10). "The Fawn" begins directly head to tail the orchestration backwards, pursued by wordless sirens, a big binary bass then comes to embrace these beautiful bewitching. The speed is now established, a phrasing à la SINEAD O'CONNOR is announced, and delivers us with chorus a melody gradually intensifying in endless emotions (7/10). With "Leave Me Be" a piano welcomes us as if for a birthday, this refrain will be repeated throughout by a plaintive recitative, but well maintained, intense and tortured like JEFF BUCLKEY, with a very dense drums thus increasing the emotional charges. With this song, WE ARE KIN reveals their full potential to be able to develop and create new and avant-garde structures! (8/10). On the other hand, there will not be much to remember from "Bruised Sky" the eponymous ... apart from a discreet entry of a synth with the sounds "Vangelisques", a classy but monotonous voice resembling at times that of BETH ORTON, a few keyboards here and there, and a little melody that will make us spend a quiet evening by the fire, in short, nothing very exciting ... (5/10). Ca ne s'arrange pas vraiment avec "I Won't Go Back". It doesn't really work out with "I Won't Go Back". A lady wakes up lasciviously and gently delivers us soul music with reflections of gospel decked out in no no no no ... which never ends. The second part is of the same ilk, atmospheric impacts and ricocant voices close this little deadly interlude and devoid of progressive structure (5.5 / 10). "Nothing More" arrives at the right time as if to contradict the aforementioned words, and to make this piece my chosen one! This title settles brilliantly in musical forms and excellently produced compositions, thus approaching the very best in terms of progressive construction, prompting me to expire the word ... finally! The harmonics are superior here and take their places well thanks to a well-timed bass / drums section, revealing Pop-Rock or even Trip-Hop tones like PORTISHEAD. But halfway, this beautiful enthusiasm stops abruptly, the group then resumes its already mentioned shortcomings by adding repetitive lamentos, and vibratos at the exaggerated execution time ... thus prohibiting me from placing a 10 for this beautiful piece. Arrived at the last part around 4:25 we will discover an EMMA BREWIN-CADDY sussing sweet words, punctuated by silences suggesting an ideal elsewhere, by a deep and nuanced song coiled in velvet ... a real little happiness (9/10 )! We reach the last and longest piece of this work with "Paper Boat". The Diva takes her soprano voice and sends us silky softness tinged with delicate harmonies, to then transform into abusively severe expressions, thus moving towards an expressionist and unique Rock. We will once again be able to notice PORTISHEAD-style atmospheres and rhythms and phrases resembling RUFUS WAINWRIGHT ... what a beautiful mix! Weird sound effects and vocoders of men with vehement expressions break this careful work and spoil what for me was going to be the highlight of the album ... But luckily, the last minute that I let you discover is of a rare beauty! (8/10). You will understand by reading me, I am quite mixed about the few stumbling blocks that follow. I consider that a Prog music group playing without an electric or acoustic guitar is an almost prohibitive component for me, even if it is not essential or a guarantee of quality. Here, no guitar solo, no keyboard solo, no drum solo, no RICK WAKEMAN or KEITH EMERSON prowess, no lactic acid in the fingers or in the wrists either ... and the only existing solos are vocal. A few arpeggios would have been enough for me, but hey ... But I understand very well that the instrumentalists are not there to give us a demonstration of their virtuoso talent, but that they serve above all as accompanists for this extremely rare voice and beautiful, and that they have chosen their own style to shape their music as they see fit. The positives, and there are several, come from a strong sense of class and subtlety that emanates from the compositions from start to finish. From the wonderful voice of EMMA BREWIN-CADDY who uses her vocal cords like a musical instrument, the beauty that emanates from it and its warmth that touches us deeply. A good point will also be distributed to LEE BRADOCK for the incisive and sonorous rendering of his four strings. Check-in is clean and production decent. Recommended for connoisseurs of chic and refined music