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Horrific Child - L'étrange Mr. Whinster CD (album) cover

L'ÉTRANGE MR. WHINSTER

Horrific Child

 

RIO/Avant-Prog

2.63 | 24 ratings

From Progarchives.com, the ultimate progressive rock music website

Dobermensch
Prog Reviewer
3 stars The superb cover art gives you an idea as to how this odd album sounds. A conglomeration of sounds confront us at the beginning with pleasant European guitars that quickly give way to Saharan drumming and chanting by natives of Chad by the sound of things, which morph into the Frenchman responsible for this album mouthing eerie incantations.

I always seem to pick the most difficult albums to review. This is, however pretty tough to describe.

30 seconds in to 'Angoisse' and there's a horrible hiss from Jean-Pierre Massiera's teeth as he tries to pronounce a word full of the letter '"S" - so shrill, my ears start flapping like Stan Laurel.

Unfortunately I can't speak a word of French and there's a lot of it being spoken here, so I'm at somewhat at a disadvantage. Deeply reverbed 'Jamie Curtis Halloween' piano and screeching strings intermingled with spoken vocals create an all-consuming atmosphere which half of the listeners will either find hilarious or downright alarming.

I really don't know what to make of this short curiosity at all. 'HIA' begins with creepy keyboards, heartbeat, screams and footsteps (in amongst my vinyl clicks and pops). Non rock drums, running horses and creaking doors add to my confusion. Bits of classical music appear and more running footsteps and heavy breathing which leave me totally perplexed. 6 minutes in and things go all Floyd 'Meddle' style, only to rapidly be struck dead by a bolt of lightning.

More damn horses and some female wailing with owls hooting in the background makes this most the most difficult of albums to convey. There's not much tune, but plenty going on and lots of atmosphere in a 70's kitsch horror kind of way.

Multiple vocal tape loops take over before we visit a Caribbean Island where everything is all nice and peaceful. Within seconds someone starts screaming which gets me all hot and bothered. Thankfully the one minute outro is the only constant, where a couple of guitars and an organ play a nice little repetitive tune to see us out of this nightmarish, but silly album. Blimey! What an ordeal.

Good or bad? No idea... It's certainly bizarre though.

Dobermensch | 3/5 |

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