Ange is better ! In more a name without originality

Satan : A longtime unreleased gem Jules Yentoma·.Recorded in 1975, this album should have been one of the finest artefacts of french progressive rock, yet it remained unreleased for more than forty years. Blame it on risk-averse record companies or on the band's lack of pugnacity, still that fantastic tape has been gathering dust on a shelf for four decades, whereas it should have been considered as seminal and important as most works by famous french bands of that time (Ange, Mona Lisa, Pulsar, Atoll) which were lucky enough to gain recognition in their heydays and have now acquired an undisputed cult reputation since then. This album contains five numbers that were composed between 1972 and 1975, ever since the band was initially named Heaven Road and trying to develop its own identity amongst the french musical scene, mostly under the influence of Pink Floyd, Soft Machine, King Crimson, Colosseum, Jethro Tull, etc. By the time they were joined by young, gifted, classically-trained keyboard player Jérôme Lavigne, this formerly rather blues-rock influenced band began to tackle more adventurous stuff, trying to challenge the bands they were listening to, Genesis, Yes, PFM, Gentle Giant or ELP. Yet Satan had a double-sided sound signature : one one hand you had some fiery musings and atmospheric passages mainly due to a wide use of keyboards (Hammond organ, Eminent, Moog, Fender Rhodes), and on the other hand there was a solid texture of rather heavy guitar and rhythm section. All sung in french language, lyrics were inspired by literature (especially sci-fi) as well as dreamlike (if not nightmarish) realms. But the band was most of all keen on focusing on its will to figure soundscapes just as if they were film score composers. Unearthed by the french label Monster Melodies Records, Satan's album displays a quite exciting set of original compositions with intriguing moods, such as "OS" which depicts the nightmare of a factory worker, tormented by machines just as in a bad LSD trip version of Chaplin's "Modern Times", "La Nuit des Temps", based on René Barjavel's famous novel, and providing impressive pinkfloydish images of ice landscapes, or "Le Voyage", featuring lavish, bombastic keyboards and tasty quiet / loud sections a la Nursery Cryme, and dealing with the story of a young time traveller in its struggle to escape from apocalypse. The members of the band had then chosen to autoproduce its album in order to throw off the rules of the record industry, yet despite its obvious qualities, they were unsuccessful in having it released. Thus Satan became one of France's unjustly forgotten bands from the unlucky days of the musical scene from the bad side of the Channel. Let's hope this luxurious Monster Melodies Records release will do justice to their honest, faithful and sincere work.

Thanks for quoting my review ! This record is quite outstanding and its release was kind of unexpected more than forty-one years after having been recorded !