Gabriel Keller 22024
Hope Despite Everything
Forward, forward, to put one’s wishes to the test: progressive rock auteur is set to look at the bright side of life.
“The day destroys the night”: Gabriel Keller must be familiar with this classic line – only he doesn’t see light and darkness as forces that lay waste to each other, which is why the French artist’s sophomore effort “Hope Despite Everything” and his debut album "Clair Obscur" are part of a single cycle, as suggested by their cover artwork’s lunar overlay. Yet while the latter felt like a tentative statement of the Lyon multi-instrumentalist’s creative ambitions, the former will reveal the entire scope of what he’s capable of in terms of finding a riveting context for a concept and ramping up dramatic arrangements to serve the themes of despair and optimism. It’s an impressive panorama of dewy fields and dusty roads leading to one’s grasp of eternity – sonically and lyrically.
Could there be a lot of reasons to start this opus with the cinematic effects, strum and chorale of “Why?” other than to try and provoke the listener to ponder the matters of life and death that take the form of epistles to a soldier from his mother? But before “The Letter” – an epic split in two heavy and uneven halves bursting with unhurried guitar riffs, ivories’ roar and violin-and-cello passages, passionately voiced by Emi B, and divided with the delicate, albeit highly charged, ballad “The Guns Are Approaching” – reaches its emotional peak, Keller’s ensemble get engaged in a groovy romp, a series of folk reveries and progressive rock flights. However, after all those tempo changes, the bluesy sway and madrigal-like solemnity of “My Son” still feel unexpected, especially when they’re contrasted with the belligerent dance of “No Surrender” which is followed by “Oppression” where robust armature and barbed wire come to the sonic surface and send operatic ripples to the horizon.
It’s there that the lightweight beauty of “Poussières éternelles” – which Angelina Pellet’s fragile vocals carry beyond the edge of pain – flutters through the ether until the raindrop harmonies of acoustic “Your Way” bring the wonder down to earth. Yet “Change” turns the platter’s flow into a slow vaudeville to set the scene for the even more celestial polyphony of “Mahaut” whose chamber drift is as breathtaking as an album’s finale can get. A miraculous record.
*****
