4/3 de Trio. F4i3lesse (Faiblesse 1998). CD, Album. France. Eclectic Prog, Progressive Rock.

1. F4i3lesse (6:33) 2. Os (4:46) 3. Queen Wilson (5:06) 4. Marie J.(5:05) 5. Vicious Heart (6:26) 6. En Depit (5:52) 7. Spare Yourself The Pain (2:00) 8. The Taste Of You (7:54) 9. Ma Devise (3:06) 10. Loe (9:26) 11. Acore (2:44) 12. Ile (1:30) 13. Dying For Religion (7:39) Total Time 68:28 Bass, Noises – Romain Gayral Drums, Classical Guitar, Timbales, Bongos, Triangle – Didier Pégeron Electric Guitar, Acoustic Guitar, Vocals – Guillaume Fenoy Electric Guitar, Mellotron, Organ, Synthesizer, Djembe – Sébastien Gramond Lyrics By – Guillaume Fenoy Lyrics By [English] – Stephen Howard Photography By – Marc Dolciami, Thierry Gallay Producer, Mixed By – 4/3 De Trio Recorded By, Mixed By, Producer – Raphaël Cartellier Written-By – Didier Pégeron (tracks: 5, 10, 13), Guillaume Fenoy, Romain Gayral (tracks: 1, 2, 4, 6, 9, 11, 13), Stephen Howard (tracks: 5), Sébastien Grammond (tracks: 1, 8, 9, 11, 13) Recorded at Studio Cartellier, Salaise-sur-Sanne, Isère, France, August 11, 12, 13, 14, 18 & 19, 1997. This French band plays a guitar driven brand of prog that is often quite heavy with pastoral passages scattered throughout for contrast. There are three instrumental tracks although vocals are used sparingly on the rest of the songs, and are sung in both French and first half of this album is especially strong making me think that we might have a masterpiece here, but the second half is not nearly as amazing. “Faiblesse“ really kicks in after a minute and a half of calm and does it ever remind me of ANEKDOTEN ! The angular guitar, heavy drums and bass is amazing. This song and “Queen Wilson“ are my favourites. “Os“ opens with organ and there are female mellow is again contrasted with the noisy and they let it rip 3 minute in. This sounds like an Alternative Rock song. Heavy ! “Queen Wilson“ is an instrumental and check out the drumming and thumping get quiet as we can hear the waves of mellotron slowly and softly mellotron starts to build slowly as drums,guitar and bass come in. I’m in heaven at this point. “Marie J.“ has some great heavy guitar and the drumming is all over the is a long, beautiful guitar solo followed by vocals. “Vicious Heart“ opens with reserved vocals in a tranquil soundscape that changes 3 minutes in to a beautiful straight-forward, catchy song with organ and a blistering guitar solo. “En Depit“ is a heavy song as the guitarist fires off a couple of blazing is heavy duty music. “Spare Yourself The Pain“ is a short, mellow 2 minute song with classical guitar. “The Taste Of You“ has some great bass in it. The song kicks in around the 2 minute mark to an intense, heavy melody. The song softens later as we are treated to some delicate guitar. Just a warning about the lyrics on this one. Yikes ! “Ma Devise“ slowly builds in volume and we get some mellotron as well. The song ends with a great and tasteful guitar solo. “Loe“ is a long instrumental of two acoustic guitar melodies with ones a little tough to get into. “Acore“ is another instrumental only better as bombastic passages come and go with some fantastic guitar. “Ile“ is a short song with fragile vocals and classical guitar. “Dying For Religion“ has this guitar melody that reminds me of OCEANSIZE. The vocals come in as the song becomes mellow. Some drums come in and the guitar is close behind. This one gets heavy to close it out. This one I can readily recommend to those who like lots of guitar and don’t mind a little complexity. Review by Mellotron Storm