Franck Carducci 2015
Second adventure for master of disguise and surprise, with wonders at every bend of the road.
Torn Apart
"Oddity", this artist’s debut, was a multilayered affair, a fall down the rabbit’s hole of sorts, but now Franck Carducci seems to have sorted out his deck and landed in “a place where dreams are kings and emotions are queens” – although such a description can’t prepare one for a new journey. Of course, “Torn Apart” may imply a fragmented vision, yet fortunately, that’s not the case, and occasional foray into an unexpected direction serves a wondrous purpose. It’s not often that you hear rock ‘n’ roll licks on a prog album, on the irresistibly funky title track here, all ten soulful, Hammond-spashed minutes of it that ripple into fantasy and back into the fray; or have a miltary march underpin a pop song like “Artificial Love” to feed into the less romantic “Artificial Paradises” leading, in its turn, onto a true trip.
Strange as it is, neither this art-rock epic nor the four-part “A Brief Tale Of Time” don’t pack the same inpact as the emotional blues of “Closer To Irreversible” which houses Steve Hackett‘s guitar in the unrecognizable, if perfectly fitting the song, manner while “Mr Hyde & Dr Jekyll” is a reckless hard rock number that’s saved by a wild organ solo just when the momentum starts to get lost in the riffs. Still, just when melancholy sets in, a bonus cover kick of SUPERTRAMP’s “School” gives nostalgia a new twist for it all to come together rather than be torn apart. So yes, the vision is fragmented on the album, but in a kaleidoscopic way.
***4/5
