Beekstraat 1 - B-2640 Mortsel - Belgium

LA TULIPE NOIRE: Faded leaves

Release

Style

History repeats itself. When Marillion started they were accused of being a Genesis clone. For some critics, they never lost that image, as long as Fish did the vocals.
Now La Tulipe Noire is considered as a Marillion clone. Who wants to become the first La Tulipe Noire clone?

I have to admit that their previous album “Shattered Image” sounded a lot like Marillion. But it’s certainly not because of the vocals, as La Tulipe Noire has a female singer, so she doesn’t sound like Fish at all. The guitars have the Rothery sound, but is that a crime? And the style of the keyboards is a bit like Mark Kelly.

On “Shattered Image”, they made the mistake, to put some songs that resembled very much to songs of Marillion from the jester’s period. So the hard job awaits them to make us forget this comparison. Personally, I don’t mind having a band that sounds like Marilion, as Marillion themselves don’t sound like the early Marillion anymore.

The new CD “Faded Leaves” doesn’t contain copies of Marillion songs. They have worked on their own identity.
Trying to make their own sound has caused a loss of variation in their songs. A lot of songs seem to have the same chords and melody lines. Only after several listen sessions, I began to know the difference. For instance, the first three songs sound very much alike. The question is, what do you prefer? A clone of a known band with no originality and lots of variation or a band with original songs but with less variation. I think this is a necessary step in their evolution.
”Lost Souls Ballad” is a very strong song, with a very good melody line that you don’t forget easily. Once the first three songs are gone, the quality of the music is rising. Maybe the order of songs on the CD could have been better. “A Beggar’s Tale” has a lot of rhythm and has some hit potential. “Le Fond Du Ciel” is also a very progressive song with a lot of solos, rhythm changes and a great story about war, Caïn and Abel. I’ve read in an interview on the site of La Tulipe Noire that most of the lyrics are about loneliness and feelings that come along with that loneliness.

“Wanderer”, together with “A Memory Picture” and “Lost Souls Ballad” are the best songs of “Faded Leaves”. “Wanderer” has a beautiful narrated piece, followed by a splendid keyboard solo and a long guitar solo (with a Gilmour sound). “A Memory Picture” is a faster song with a very catchy vocal line en some marvellous solos. The middle of the song contains a great, serene string intermezzo. In this song, Ima proves that she can do a lot more with her voice then she did in the previous songs. She has a beautiful voice, but I’m sure it will still grow on their futur work.

Conclusion.

A very good prog CD from a band, that’s still growing and that’s searching for their own identity. The band forms a better unity then on their previous work. They surely have set a great step in the good direction. Or to quote the Musea site: “Pick this rare flower as soon as possible: it’s going to nicely illuminate your secret garden devoted to Progressive Rock…”

Musicians

1. In The Gates Of Dream (1997)
2. Shattered Image (2000)
3. Faded Leaves (2002)
4. Nostimon Hemar (2006)

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Last updated: 03 maart 2006 .
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