Customer Reviews

Absinthe: The French Album

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I feel that I must amend the former reviewers mistakes: this album IS the companion album to the Jacques CD but if you read the liner notes you will see that most of these songs were written for a singer named Juliette Greco, not BY Jacques Brel. This album also includes covers and interpretations of other French singers material. The sound is what you would expect of French torch songs: light percussion, piano, strings, horns, accordion....and Marc has managed to recreate the music with a production that sounds modern (as it should, being modern) rather than just a retelling of other peoples' music in his own voice; it was as if the original artists had just been signed to a recording contract today and then recorded this album.

This CD will transport you...from the lulling ambience of a Parisian cafe to the cheeky trampings of Marc at full tilt. This is a Marc Almond CD I'll keep in my rotation for years to come.

This album is not sung in French but rather is a collection of songs in the French cabaret music vibe; most of these songs were written by Jacques Brelle. Almond (who originally was the singer of Soft Cell--remember "Tainted Love"?) has a preoccupation with Jacque Brelle and has covered the singer throughout his career. These songs are not synthy, as most of Almond's CD, but rather are kind simple. The highlights are the amorous "In Your Bed" and the regretful "Yesterday When I Was Young."