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Maldoror: L'Arbre – Cimetière
Maldoror - L'Arbre – Cimetière - [Utopia Promotion]

2006-10-24

Somewhere in the mid 70's, an Italian prog rock band called Maxophone released their first album, all vocals and singing parts were in Italian, in time it proved to be one of finest Italian Prog rock acts and in general one of the best prog albums ever (in my opinion of course). Later, they released the same album but in an English version, so it could be easier to accept worldwide. They never got to record the second album, for financial reasons to my understanding, and it was one of the biggest loses to the music world. By the way, the general opinion goes that the original Italian version is the better one.

What do these two bands have in comment for me? Well, when I heard both albums I found myself thinking "I wish this could be in English so I could also enjoy the lyrics and not only the great music", in Maxophone's case I found that It sounded best in its original form, a lesson that I took with me on this one, if it's perfect at it is, don't play with it, and that's how I figured that it doesn't bother me that I can't understand a word here, the music speaks by itself.

Maldoror are a group of five French musicians which gave birth to the band around June 1994, spent some time playing cover versions and then decided to focus on original material, lucky for us they did just that and it shows all in their excellent debut album "L'Arbre – Cimetière".
From the first moment the album starts you can tell that these guys have spent time listening to the real prog rock Dinosaurs, the first phrase is already drowning in the Crimson pool of influence and from that point of on they give us their version of prog rock music with tastes from bands like Marillion, Yes and Rush, don't get me wrong there's nothing here that could be defined as "Stolen" or "Not original" - it's all them!, these guys play from a place of real understanding of the musical genre and are making their own Prog Rock era, 70's style but with a hint of more modern heavier prog music.

Truth is, me and the French language don't go together too well (so if I fell in love with their music, it's despite the fact he sings in French) but It's all good, the vocals are part of the music just like any other instrument, and combine into an excellent prog record.

I can honestly say that this is one of the finest prog rock bands I've heard in a long time and I just hope they'll be able to keep on working and will bring more great new music into our world. GET THIS RECORD!

Roy Povarchik



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