Bahamas - Le voyageur immobile (Fra 76)

I almost want to feature this just because of the cover. As I've said before these 70s albums are always worth checking out for their cover art-- the ingenuity and artistry that went into them is astounding. Nothing like today's stuff, although the alternative records from the 90s really came close with a very fresh spirit towards art. Here we have a beautiful homage to Rene Magritte, complementing the album's title.
A bit like countrymen Ocean's hard rock style with prog, on the dial going from jazz to rock to prog to chamber, it's a bit on the right side of the rock setting. The songwriting here is really masterful and interesting, sometimes achieving pop rock greatness with the basic rock quartet of bass drums guitar and piano, some really inventive guitar melodies are woven together with bashed out piano chords. Eerie synth figures occasionally make an appearance, but those are very lightly used unlike the traditional french sympho-prog.

The second song is the prog masterpiece, starting with an eerie scale on top of the classic augmented fourth that is so essential to this genre, it passes on to a more traditional rock composition soon enough but without leaving the progressive roots. The third song painfully reminds me of 10cc's big hit "I'm not in love," which because it came out in 1975, predates this album by a year. Same sustained major chord moving into its minor counterpart with long background curtains of vocals throughout. By mentioning this I hope I don't ruin it for anyone. Could be a coincidence, but 10cc's hit was a number one I think-- hold on, I'm probably wrong about that, please no comments.
Really enjoyable album with enough progressive to keep us happy, very much indebted to mid-70s rock-pop, sadly and unfairly forgotten. These are the songs that should be played on your local AM radio station, not more led zeppelin and "I've got a brand new pair of rollerskates". No tracklist, I apologize.

Motel...