KLONE: Le Grand Voyage (ATMOSPHERIC ROCK): review / opinion to read on Music Waves

We had left Klone on the acoustic project "Unplugged" which appeared as the logical continuation of "Here Comes The Sun". This experience was not just a simple parenthesis in the Poitevins' career, since the lightweight format of the band that played on "Unplugged" is the one found in the ninth album. The two guitarists Guillaume Bernard and Aldrick Guadagnino as well as the singer Yann Ligner appear as a trio as the hard core of Klone with a rhythmic section which revolves around the inevitable Morgan Barthet. Another important change, which is perhaps not uncorrelated to the band's new style, is the signature on the English label Kscope. This whole context is the back to Klone's new album "Le Grand Voyage".

Although the title of the disc is in French, all the texts are in English. They shed light on this choice of name by describing the disorder of the world that impacts humanity and the inner introspection that can lead to emancipation. The strong filiation with the previous album is imprinted in the atmospheres nourished by reverberation, the often slow tempi or the vocal registers that reinforce the intimate and solemn depth of the music.

We will not dwell on 'Breach','Sealed','Sad And Slow' or 'Silver Gate' whose similar developments in the form of dark mid-tempi perpetuate the experience initiated by "Here Comes The Sun". The rest of the album crystallizes the main interest of this "Grand Voyage" with pleasant variations and intense final climbs that support the Poitou's original fiber as in the epic "Yonder" with its cinematographic dimension well rendered in the video, "Indelible" and its luminous saxophone additions and its groove too rarely highlighted or the powerful "The Great Oblivion" which reconnects with the rock vibration of yesteryear.

There are two other characteristics of the "Grand Voyage" that tend to distinguish it from "Here Comes The Sun". The first concerns Morgan Berthet's rhythmic contribution, whose playing adds a carnal and earthly tonality to the melancholy maintained in the disc, while Florent Marcadet supported the lightness and fullness that elevated Klone's composition into more ethereal, vaporous and chimeric spheres. The second nuance lies in the arrangements and orchestrations that find an ideal place here, especially in the finals of "Yonder" or the very successful "Keystone", to counterbalance the gravity that we were pointing just before.

"Le Grand Voyage" is part of the continuity of the journey inaugurated by "Here Comes The Sun". Several tracks are clearly linked to him while others mark on the one hand a slight but real inclination to return to Klone's rock roots, on the other hand an epic and innovative symphonic ambition. Unlike "Here Comes The Sun" whose radical orientation acted as a clear break with the past, "Le Grand Voyage" sails between two states that are not yet clearly defined. This album and the whole environment around the band suggest that the great journey in which Klone takes us is far from over. - Official website

KLONE

LE GRAND VOYAGE

KSCOPE

ATMOSPHERIC ROCK