Gabriel Keller – Clair Obscur, 2022
Tracks: Tumulte (3:29), Time (5:01), Train To Resolution (4:27), Open Arms (5:13), Melancholia (3:50), Sonate Au Clair Obscur (6:42), Nothing Human (5:35), Out Of My Life (6:51), Honey (4:45), Acclamie (2:59)
We’re back into our mini series of reviews of French progressive rock albums, and today’s album has been my favorite of the batch. Gabriel Keller’s Clair Obscur has a range of influences, from the Beatles and Pink Floyd to Porcupine Tree and Opeth. The album features four different vocalists, each of whom wrote their own lyrics in their language of choice (English and French). There are three different guitarists and a host of stringed and blown instruments as well.
The first half of the album leans more on the pop influences, much influenced by Emi B’s smooth and clear vocals. The lyrics touch on struggles of love in difficult circumstances. The melodies on these tracks (“Time,” “Train to Resolution,” and “Open Arms”) are very catchy and very memorable. The melancholic pop of “Open Arms” makes a nice transition to Charlotte Gagnor’s appropriately entitled track, “Melancholia.” The French lyrics and Gagnor’s voice create a haunting atmosphere that is beautifully supported by strings and the occasional Gilmour lick from Keller’s guitar.
As the album moves along, it gradually gets heavier until it is solidly in progressive metal territory by “Honey.” One might think the differences in style across one album would be jarring, but the gradual shift as it goes makes it work really well. Even though there are four different singers with four different styles of writing, and thus varying lyrical themes, the album feels very cohesive. That’s a testament to Gabriel Keller as a musical writer.
The instrumental opening track sets the stage nicely, giving the listener a flavor of what’s to come: guitar-driven rock with spacey backgrounds and layered sounds with varying levels of heaviness. Similarly, the instrumental closing track helps the listener decompress after the album gradually ascended the mountain of rock.
The variety of instrumentation also set this album apart. “Sonate au Clair Obscur” demonstrates the layers to be found on this record. It’s a longer primarily instrumental piece complete with stringed quartet, piano, and varying styles of guitar. It starts off quieter before gradually moving into heavier and more complex territory. The strings take on a more abrupt pace, complementing the growing heaviness of the guitar tone. There are some lyrics in the song, but they are more like backing vocal tracks with the music taking center stage. This track is really about the music.
“Nothing Human” is the closest to Porcupine Tree that we get on the record. The mournful guitar playing in the back of the mix behind Maïté Merlin’s vocals. The guitars have a heavy crunch throughout, especially in the chorus. My only beef in this song comes from pronunciation on a particular vowel in the word “winner,” which repeats in the chorus. In French and English, the letters “i” and “e” are pronounced opposite from each other. As such, the way Merlin pronounces this word in English comes out a bit differently than intended. I’m immature so I found it funny, which clearly isn’t the intent of the song. Honestly, that is the only complaint I have with the record – I’m grasping at straws for that. The song is great. The heaviness is well-balanced by Merlin’s vocals.
This record has certainly grabbed my attention over the several months I’ve had it (yes, yes, I know, I’m slow at reviewing and I have a backlog), so much so that Clair Obscur will find its way into my year-end best of list. The songs are memorable, and they draw you in with each listen. The stylistic variety on the album works well because of how the album is arranged. It gradually builds by the end leaving you wondering how you got to where you ended up. If you’re looking for an album to take you on a journey through realms of melancholic pop and hard rock crunch, put Clair Obscur on your list.
I missed this album when it came out, although I remember reading about it in Prog magazine. I came to appreciate Pain of Salvation with their 2020 album, Panther, which was my top album of the year. I finally started to dig into their back catalog this summer, and I’ve been blown away. In The Passing Light Of Day is a brilliant tour-de-force of emotions. Some of the lyrics I think are too sexually explicit, which is primarily why I rank it at number 10 and why I almost kicked it off my top ten. But the music and melodies are so good, and most of the lyrics are incredibly profound. I also think Ragnar Zolberg brought a lot to the table and was a great balance to Daniel Gildenlöw.
It was hard to pick one of the 
Portals is a brilliant album. It is unique on this list for being a live release, but it is also unique for being a live-in-studio release – a product of the pandemic. I suppose that’s why I don’t rank it higher on this list, but I’ve been listening to it a ton since it came out. I even broke down recently and bought the fancy deluxe CD/DVD/Blu-ray edition. I think most of the tracks on here sound better than they do on the original albums. The album also introduced me to the band, as well as to the world of djent. The way the band blends djent riffs with Floydian spacey motifs is just perfect. One of the finest bands in the world right now.
I go in spurts when listening to Haken (like I do with many bands). The Mountain has a magnificent blend of metal with splashes of 70s golden age prog. Songs like “Atlas Stone,” “The Cockroach King,” “Falling Back to Earth,” and “Pareidolia” have become prog metal classics, in my book. I’ve come to think Haken isn’t as compelling in their quiet tracks as bands like Riverside of TesseracT, but this entire album is still very listenable nine years later.
Marillion’s F.E.A.R. was my introduction to the band, and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed diving back into their catalog. I’d have to say I think this is one of their best with Hogarth. Their latest album, “An Hour Before It’s Dark,” comes very close to it, but “Reprogram the Gene” knocks it down a peg for me. F.E.A.R. combines musical prowess with cultural critique to wonderful effect, even if I may disagree with Hogarth at points.
I had a hard time deciding which of Riverside’s three studio albums from the past decade to choose. Love, Fear and the Time Machine and Wasteland are both brilliant, and if I had allowed myself to choose multiple albums from the same artist in a top ten, Wasteland would probably be here too, but I think Shrine edges both of them out. It’s heavy, both musically and lyrically. Several of the songs turn into real earworms for me, and I’m never disappointed when I return to this record. And it’s another one on this list that I discovered several years after its release.
Oak is my favorite new band of the last decade. Both their 2013 (2016 release on CD) album Lighthouse and 2018’s False Memory Archive are brilliant albums, if not perfect. This record was my top album of 2018, and Lighthouse was my top album of 2016 (I didn’t realize at the time it had been released digitally earlier). The Norwegian melancholic aesthetic is dripping from both albums. It was hard to pick one of the two, but the closing track on False Memory Archive, “Psalm 51,” is one of the finest album closers I’ve ever heard. I think that gives this record the edge.
I was blown away by Devin Townsend’s Empath when it came out – so much so that I bought the 2CD deluxe version that year and the super deluxe version when Inside Out funded that project the next year. The record masterfully blends all the aspects of Devin’s career into a truly unique and truly Devin experience. It has the heavy bombast of Strapping Young Lad at points, yet it’ll soar into orchestral and even operatic highs elsewhere – or even at the same time. Pure musical theater in the best way. Devin’s vocal performance on “Why?” is stunning, and the message of hope on “Spirits Will Collide” is always a pleasant reminder that life is worth living. The production side of things, with Devin’s famed “wall of sound,” is unmatched in his career, or anyone else’s for that matter.
Here we come to one of the truly great albums of our time. I would certainly rank this in a top 10 best albums of all time. Back in 2015, this album was my number 3 pick, with The Tangent’s “A Spark in the Aether” coming in at number 1. Now I still think that’s a great record, and I wrestled with whether or not to include it in my top 10, but I think over time Wilson’s masterpiece has proven to be a generational album. Both the music and the story sound fresh, even seven years and many listens later. The themes of isolation and loneliness in city life (or life in general) will always be relatable. Someone 100 years from now could listen to this record, and while they may miss some of the references (even I still miss some of them), the underlying theme will still connect. That’s what places this record up there with the likes of Pink Floyd’s The Wall.
The defining band and defining album for the last decade of prog. Looking back, this record was the one that got me into the contemporary progressive rock scene. Returning to it today is a special treat, as I hope it always will be. It contains everything you might want out of a quintessentially “English” progressive rock band. It has the rock, the folk elements, the complex musicality, the well-told stories. And then there’s David Longdon’s voice, showing us his command of the material and his command of the upcoming several years in the prog scene. When I traveled to England in 2015 (which to me felt like a longer distance between its release than it feels between now and that visit – it’s weird how your perception of time changes as you grow older) I really wanted to listen to this album while being out in the hedgerows and fields. I can still remember sitting on a bus traveling between towns listening to English Electric (I wrote more about this in a 
Solace Supplice, Liturgies Contemporaines, June 15, 2022
Progarchy 