Review: Lazuli, Fleece

Appearances sure can be deceptive. With their impressive array of beards, dreadlocks, ponytails and accessorised black kilts, Lazuli look like the kind of band one might expect to find playing sloppy white reggae to a field full of inebriated trustafarians outside the healing tent at some ghastly boutique festival. In fact, the ferociously talented French fivesome operate at the intersection of world music and progressive rock (or deal in “quelque part entre rock progressif, chanson, électro et world” as their own biog puts it), with a potentially broad appeal to more adventurous fans of both genres.

Considering that they struggle with the language (“My English is terrible,” confesses engaging frontman/guitarist Dominique Leonetti), sing exclusively in French, and you can’t even buy their seven albums in this country unless you’re prepared to pay silly money over t’internet, Lazuli’s ‘best kept secret’ status means they pull a modest if enthusiastic audience to the Fleece on a Sunday night. With no sign of the promised ‘very special guests’, the quintet amble on early and perform a full two-hour set with all the infectious joy and astonishing musicianship they bring to their big festival shows back home.

It begins gently with the seven-minute Le temps est à la rage, which opens new album Nos âmes saoules and showcases Dominique’s delicate, high-pitched singing voice. It’s not long before this gives way to the full grandeur of their distinctive sound, which owes much to the léode. You’ll search music shops in vain for this instrument – which looks rather like a chubbier Chapman Stick and is played from a seated position – because Dominique’s brother Claude designed it himself after losing the use of his left arm in a motorcycle accident. A combination of guitar, synthesiser and melodic saw, it produces an extraordinary variety of sounds, ranging from a Middle Eastern wail to the melodic, distinctive sustain that Steve Hackett favoured on those early Genesis albums.

This blends so perfectly with Gédéric Byar’s guitar and Romain Thorel’s (forwards-tilted, prog-metal syle) keyboards that it’s often difficult to work out who’s playing what. The others are no slouches either, each doubling up on additional instrumentation, with Thorel playing the French horn and drummer Vincent Barnavol switching effortlessly to the marimba.

Indeed, unless someone out there knows otherwise, this could well have been the first time the Fleece stage has played host to a French horn solo. Notice something missing, though? Yup, there’s no bass guitar – all the bass notes apparently being generated by a combination of pedals and keyboards.

Given this unique melange, comparisons are tricky. But Lazuli’s music has much in common with Peter Gabriel’s knack of blending out-there experimentation with accessible tunesmithery. There’s timely politics too. Having resorted to a crib sheet by this point, Dominique reminds us that we’re not the only victims of depressing post-Brexit Trumpworld nastiness, introducing Le mar du passé as “a song about the rise of the far right in my country”.

As is now traditional, the encore brings Nine Hands Around the Marimba, which, as the title suggests,  sees the entire band gather centre stage for a breathtakingly dextrous communal marimba workout. Despite all the dicking about and swapping places, they don’t miss a note. And as usual, they cheekily drop a cover into the middle of it to make sure we’re paying attention. Barring a late Hallelujah surge, Bowie’s Heroes may yet emerge as the year’s most-played song, but nobody has succeeded in performing it quite like this.

All photos by Mike Evans

Read more: Metal & Prog picks: November 2016