I presented to you the last album of ' Bjørn Riis' two days ago and I come back to an album released in early March 2022 in the same style as that of the Norwegian. This is the 'CEN-ProjekT' project led by the German 'Chris Engels' and which is not making the buzz on the internet, the only review I found having been produced by the very good French site for progressive music 'Progcritique'. Accompanied by bassist 'Wolfgang Kropf' and drummer 'Marius Böffgen', 'Chris Engels' who sings and provides the guitar and keyboard sections, offers us atmospheric progressive rock in the great tradition of the beginning of it. here in the 70s with, of course, as a reference the 'Pink-Floyd'. This is what we discover on the first title 'To an Old Square Piano' which welcomes us in an aerial atmosphere on a slow tempo and the nonchalant singing of 'Chris Engels' adds to this feeling of fullness. We find the same musical climate in 'The Pessimist' which has very beautiful melodic lines, or in 'Silence' which also deploys a soothing atmospheric climate or even 'Auspex' with its very original accompaniment of an acoustic guitar. Between these calm and relaxing compositions, come more rhythmic compositions with, first, 'She Came and Went' which has a second instrumental part with remarkable keyboard and guitar solos, then, the title song concludes the album in a more energetic atmosphere with a marked rhythmic interspersed here and there with calmer sections remarkably breaking this feeling of urgency. Strangely, you can also find on youtube an original and futuristic video of 'Hope' (see above) which is not part of the streaming version of 'The Lost One' and which is an admirable long development that makes me think, certain places, with the delicate atmosphere released by certain titles of the Germans of 'RPWL' and which again bring us back to 'Floyds'.
In summary, this new project from 'Chris Engels' offers us a first album which takes us on a journey into a 'Floydian' progressive rock universe filled with beautiful melodies that are immediately assimilable, which makes 'The Lost One' (to which we can add the title 'Hope') a very good surprise 2022 in atmospheric progressive... | |
