Ange - Souffleurs De Vers (2007)

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Ange - Souffleurs De Vers (2007)

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I should have attended their concert at the Olympia in Paris for the real start of their promotional tour for their latest studio album (I even convinced my seventeen years old son to come with me) but poor health prevented me to do so. I'll console myself while attending their gig at the Spirit of 66 within a few weeks from now.
The time of the great "Ange" albums is of course a very old story. IMHHO their true latest great album was released in 1978 ("Guet Apens") but the band still produced very good material with "Sиve Qui Peut" in 1989 and a good one with "Culinaire Lingus" (2001).

This album is a rather rocking one (like their eighties work but better). Lyrics of course are above par. Not to be compared with the greatest "Ange" albums from their most brilliant period (the seventies, would you believe?). A song as "Dieu Est Un Escroc" fully brings us some thirty five years backwards to their most anti clerical great texts (and I am so in line with them as far as this philosophic question arises).

The funniest one of this album is definitely "Interlude". But therefore you need to master the French language unfortunately. But this has always been a deep characteristics of this great band and probably therefore they never had a broader audience outside the French speaking territories (to which my country - Belgium - belongs).

This album is rather a deception for me.

Coupee En Deux renowns with the good texts from Christain Descamps. One of the best lyricists in the prog music history IMHHO. No god nor love song in his work. Just fabulous themes and stories. Only pared with Gabriel early work if you see what I mean. This song is full of play on words but again, totally out of reach if you are not fluent in French.

This album lacks in grandeur. It is French rock oriented all the way through and I can't really identify one great song out of it. Even not the long and epic title track. This album is not essential at all to your "Ange" discography. Their first six albums do sell for very cheap on Amazon, so stick to them and discover a great prog band.

~ ZowieZiggy, Progarchives

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Ange - Souffleurs De Vers (2007)

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Ange:

Formed in late 1969 by brothers Christian Descamps (vocals) and Francis Descamps (keyboards) and later joined by guitarist Jean-Michel Brézovar, bassist Daniel Haas and Gérard Jelsh on drums, this French symphonic progressive rock band, similar to contemporaries such as Genesis and King Crimson, is undoubtedly France's most important prog band. Marrying prog rock influences with French folk and theatrical vocals à la Jacques Brel (Ange covered Ces Gens-là from Brel, and it turned out to be their first hit in 1970), Ange's music, but mostly their lyrics, are second to none. Thirty years later, after multiple lineup changes, charismatic and theatrical frontman Christian Descamps leads the new Ange generation alongside his son Tristan on keyboards, Hassan Hajdi on guitars, Thierry Sidhoun on bass, Caroline Crozat on vocals and Benoît Cazzulini on drums.

The classic line up (except for the drummer which changed often) recorded many cult classics, such as « Caricatures », « Le Cimetière des Arlequins », and a series of masterpieces like « Au-delà du Délire », « Émile Jacotey », « Par les Fils de Mandrin » and « Guet-Apens ». 10 years after « Guet-Apens », the same lineup would reunite and release two albums, « Sève qui Peut » in 1989 and « Les larmes du Dalaï-Lama » in 1992. While being modern, these albums nevertheless captured the main ingredients unique to Ange. Their latest albums, « Culinaire Lingus » and « ? » see the band as inspired and pertinent as ever, as if Descamps had found the secret of eternal youth.

This band is more than highly recommended, it is mandatory listening for fans of theatrical symphonic progressive rock, especially the period between « Caricatures » and « Guet-Apens ».

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Ange - Souffleurs De Vers (2007)

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Ange - Souffleurs De Vers (2007)

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