With 'Jupiter Hollow', we are fully in the music that I appreciate and it is the typical example that the tags that we want to stick to the artists do not mean much because this second album 'Bereavement 'Canadians' Grant MacKenzie and 'Kenny Parry' take us into a world of great differences by borrowing from different styles of music. You might as well warn you, it took me some time to fully appreciate these 9 compositions which take all their dimensions after sevrall listenings.
With 'L'Eau du Papineau' which begins the album, we are very close to an experimental style that brings us back somewhere in the universe of the beginning of 'Pink-Floyd' with their work on the sounds electronic and the acoustic side that can be found in albums like 'Atom Heart Mother' but with modern sounds, then, 'Scarden Valley' highlights a contemporary style with a very beautiful piano/voice duo before the participation of electric instruments which continue this track in a 'Floydienne' atmosphere and 'The Rosedale' is much more energetic with saturated guitar riffs and a repetitive melodic theme leading to a heady chorus and a remarkable performance of 'Kenny Parry' alternating sweetness and strength in his singing. It is with 'Kipling Forest' that the duo hardens the tone and we certainly have one of the hardest titles to tame but also the most contrasted and the most imaginative with multiple breaks in rhythm and intensity, then, 'The Mill' takes us into rich and inventive progressive metal with an unparalleled sound debauchery that contrasts fabulously with the 2 minutes of the serene atmosphere of the instrumental 'Mandating our Perception'. The album continues with the remarkable long development 'Sawbreaker' in which 'Kenny Parry' alternates clear vocals and growls and whose melodic lines merge between east and west and which one could undoubtedly qualify as modern progressive metal, reminiscent of the 'Porcupine Tree' project of 'Steven Wilson', then, 'Extensive Knowledge' which returns to a more calm atmosphere while keeping this contemporary side in the melodic lines, the acoustic guitar reinforcing this impression of quiet strength. The album ends with 12 minutes of an impressive 'Solar Gift' which explores multiple and varied sound regions with alternations between tension and relaxation with influences from groups like 'Opeth' or 'Pain Of Salvation'.
In summary, with this new album from the Canadians of 'Jupiter Hollow', we embark on an incredible and original journey with compositions that reinvent rock and progressive metal, but, on the flip side, 'Bereavement' risks to be limited to an informed public made up of researchers of new sounds and who like to appropriate an album little by little, listen after listen... | |
