Always very discreet on the web, the German 'Chris Engels' is nonetheless very active musically because after the release of 'The Lost One' at the start of 2022, albums are springing up like mushrooms and spotify presents three new ones with release dates so close together that it's hard to believe that all this production was done in a few months: the albums 'One' and 'The Wind' appear in May 2022 but their releases date a priori, respectively from 2020 and 2021. He also released the solo album 'Tesla' which can be heard on youtube here and this review is therefore about his latest album from the 'CEN-Projekt' project, 'C4', released a few days ago.
For this opus, the lyrics are borrowed from different poets and, musically, we find this progressive inherited from the 70s which had me much more in the previous album: 'Peace Restored' welcomes us with a catchy melody at the marked rhythm in a semi-acoustic atmosphere mixing folk and progressive influences, then, 'Arrival in the Land of Freedom' is quieter and deploys a slow tempo, the second part bringing a very beautiful break to start again on the starting theme . Follows 'Memory' which continues in this atmospheric progressive unrolling a new memorable melody, then, we will find this atmosphere later on titles like the very beautiful 'Bedouin Song', 'The Princess', 'The Two Friends' or even ' Solitude' which ends the album in style, the whole benefiting from remarkable vocal performances which can make one think of the atmospheres released by certain artists like 'Ray Wilson', 'Bjørn Riis' or 'Yogi Lang', lead singer of 'RPWL'.
In summary, it is still a beautiful album to be credited to the German 'Chris Engels' who takes care of all the stages, from composition to recording, bassist 'Wolfang Kropf' accompanying him on certain compositions, and this last album 'C4' should appeal to a whole audience that likes the references I mentioned above and we could add others who have released an album recently like the Germans of 'starfish64' or Norwegians from 'Laughing Stock' or even the English from 'Kaprekar's Constant'... | |
