From: StoOdin101 <stoodin101@aol.com>
Subject: REVIEW: Present- CERTITUDES
Date: Mon, 9 Feb 98 00:24:00
Message-ID: <19980208142401.JAA02779@ladder03.news.aol.com>
Newsgroups: rec.music.progressive
Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com

TO begin with: I have NEVER bought a bad album on Cuneiform. I have bought
albums that contained bands whose music meant nothing to me, but I cannot deny
that they are artists foremost, even if their art is meaningless to me
personally.  
POINT #2: Roger Trigaux's PRESENT has long been a favorite of mine, ever since
the Atem release of "Triskadekaphobie".
Now, the REVIEW.
Been waiting for several months for this disc to be released, and it was worth
the wait, BUT there is one caveat.  

 Present sounds like the old UZ (Heresie, 1313) with some aspects of Henry Cow
and "Wurdah ITah" Magma, electrified and metallified.
First let me get the good stuff out of the way: intricate compositions, very
dark, very heavy.  Segers' cavernous bass is superb, as is Denis' usual
astonishing work on percussion...and the Trigauxs (Trigauxi? Trigauxae?),
father and son, are killer guitarists.  Keyboard work is equally fine, though
only given a few spots to really show off. Lyrics present a materialistic,
hopeless, atheistic philosophy, so if that's a problem, stay away.  Personally
I don't agree with Trigaux's philosophy at all, but I don't have any problem
with letting him express it.

Now: the problem.  I don't know who is doing the singing, since practically
everyone is credited, but I _assume_ that the main vocalist is Roger. Well,
Roger, STOP IT!!!!!!

Roger (Or Reginald, or whoever)  is a vocalist about the calibre of
Mastermind's Bill Berends, with this one exception: Berends knows his range is
narrow and writes for it. 

Roger, on the other hand, writes these fantastic jagged vocal lines that would
tax a GOOD vocalist, and sometimes he lands right on them.  And sometimes,
alas, he doesn't.  And I don't think he cares, either. 

So there's the warning.  I think the excitement of the music outweighs the
occasionally annoying vocals, but to each his own.
Sto's Irrevocable Opinion: 9 on a 10 scale.  I would recommend Le Poison Qui
Rend Fou over this disc as an Intro to Present, but if you already know the
band, you need Certitudes, vocals and all.


NECRONOMICON, all-instrumental electronic music inspired by H.P.Lovecraft, now
available on c-60 cassette.  E-mail StoOdin101@aol.com for details.