Artist: Holy Graal
Title: Just A Signal
Label: Independent
Length: 23’13“
Tracks: 4
Style: Prog Rock
Origin: France
Similar bands: Marillion/Rush
Holy Graal is a French indie band which has existed for over 10
years. Sadly the band hasn’t had much luck when it comes
to scoring a record deal so far. The 5 members of the band are:
Frederic Guionnet (guitar), Frederic Isnard (vocals, bass), Gil
Pinatel (keys), Fatima Taamallah (backing vocals) Cyrill Tosquellas
(drums).
Holy Graal play hard edged prog rock, somewhere between prog metal
and neo-prog. They serve up some interesting fusion of styles,
which makes them hard to compare to other bands. The band has
one lead vocalist and one backing vocalist whose duets work out
pretty well, coming up with some very original vocal-lines, though
at times they sing a bit unclear. Accompanied by Pinatel’s
nice keyboards the band creates some interesting dark moods. His
spacey keyboards are up front in the mix, which leaves less room
for the other instruments. Luckily, his keyboard playing is really
good so it doesn’t bother me that much.
Although given many spins in my player, this music is a little
hard to get into. It’s not very catchy, rather slow paced
and the vocal-lines are at times pretty experimental, however
it’s a good shot at doing something different and out of
the ordinary. At times the moody dark atmosphere brings forth
a somewhat gothic sound.
There is no doubt, these are good musicians and they do have the
ability to write good songs, take 'Birds' and 'Global Awareness'
for example, which are very strong songs with a different take
on the prog genre. The other two songs though fail to attract
me in the same way, lacking good and interesting melody-lines.
Sadly this EP suffers from a thin production as it would in fact
be interesting to hear what this band could have created with
more resources at hand.
Holy Graal certainly shows a lot of promise, but I am afraid the
hard competition between bands these days and Holy Graal’s
"un-commercial" and different sound will make it difficult for
them to get signed. This is by no means a poor album, but it’s
different and might not be for everyone so make sure you listen
before buying.
