I had discovered the Brits of 'Cairo' with their first album 'Say' in 2016 and they released, after seven long years of absence, a new album, 'Nemesis', still under the leadership of keyboardist and singer 'Rob Cottingham'. Meanwhile, the singers have succeeded and it is now 'Sarah Bayley' who officiates in place of 'Lisa Driscoll' and the rest of the line up is unchanged. Note that she is taking part in the current tour of 'Lonely Robot' as a backing vocalist and that 'John Mitchell' had produced 'Cairo''s debut album. After a first listening, the general impression is that 'Nemesis' offers a very nice variety of moods and sweeps wide ranging from beautiful ballads to energetic compositions flirting with hard rock and the lengths of titles range from 3 to 8 minutes alternating immediate accessibility and richer progressive asking to linger there.
'Asleep at the Wheel' opens the ball with a progressive composition which alternates muscular passages with saturated guitars and other much calmer ones, including this very beautiful central break sung by 'Rob Cottingham', the whole benefiting from catchy melodic lines. We will note this final more or less hidden energetic in well-muscled hard rock (perhaps to announce the sequel). The two following titles are poles apart (I'm very fond of this type of contrast): first of all, moving away from progressive, 'Tripwire' offers a more direct hard rock title with a beautiful vocal performance by 'Sarah Bayley' showing all his talent in this well-tempered atmosphere, then, 'Glow' (see the video here) is a beautiful ballad à la 'Barclay James Harvest' which shows a completely different vocal range of the British, very moving. With 'Rogue', the melodic lines make me think of the band 'Karnataka', especially since this title presents two very different atmospheres: a rather direct catchy first part and a calmer and more serene second part, perfectly illustrating what the group could do at 'Ian Jones' (his latest project 'ILLUMINAE' being equally remarkable). Without transition, the emotion is at the rendezvous with 'The Love' which is a ballad that spins goosebumps and which, this time, makes me think of the best of 'Mostly Autumn' with melodic lines that seem like 'have already heard but, quite simply, so beautiful, then, 'New Beauty' continues in this palpable emotion with a progressive composition containing many changes of moods throughout the title which requires to linger there to draw all the richness, especially with this atmospheric Floydian passage in the second part of the title. We continue our beautiful journey with 'Déjà Vu' in serenity with a new ballad highlighting a beautiful vocal duo 'Rob Cottingham'/'Sarah Bayley', then, after all this accumulated emotion, 'Jumping on the Moon' gives a boost for an energetic and catchy composition with new changes of tempos bringing a beautiful diversity. And this very beautiful album ends with an astonishing 'Save the Earth' which takes us into a space-atmospheric instrumental of electronic music halfway between 'Jean-Michel Jarre' and 'Vangelis', then, the eponymous title of the album comes to offer us a last progressive piece of great beauty which sums up the whole very well and which conveys an extraordinary emotion.
In summary, as you will have understood, this latest album by the British of 'Cairo' is a pure marvel and is at the same level as the cream of the progressive formations mentioned above to which I will add other groups such as 'Mystery, 'RPWL', Cosmograf' or even 'Knight Area', and 'Nemesis' will certainly be a strong candidate for the podium of the best progressive rock albums of 2023... | |
