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Kaos Moon-"The Circle Of Madness"

Robin Bouliane / violin (4-5)

Alain Pothier / additional electric slide guitar (7) Frédéric Joyal / electric guitar (8)

Unicorn Records has done it again. The release of Kaos Moon’s The Circle of Madness shows the people there have a good ear for music. The opening sitar-like-ethnic rhythm-violin strains of the CD’s first track “Eternal Light Avenue” grabbed me at first. Then after hearing, the lilting melody in the lyric “live your little life” and I was hooked! Kaos Moon seem to put more into this five-minute track than many bands accomplish with more. It’s clear they’ve lost little creativity over the last 12 years since the release of their first CD. ***

More or less the brainchild of drummer Bernard Ouellette, it was he and Michel Caron who created Kaos Moon in 1985. They set about touring and made numerous TV appearances over the next couple of years before the band members went in different directions. Ouellette was recruited to sing vocals on Visible Wind’s Catharsis CD under the unlikely name of Christopher Wells while other members formed other groups. Then in 1993, Kaos Moon reformed and released their first CD entitled After the Storm. Unfortunately, the issues of the day-to-day prevented Kaos Moon from capitalizing on the release and the members settled into more traditional day-jobs. Ouellette focused his energies on running his recording studio Amadeus. Then in 2002 while once again singing a few tracks for Visible Wind the wheels were put in motion to create a new Kaos Moon release. ***

The music on The Circle of Madness is melodic symphonic rock at it’s best with plenty of subtle twists and turns. The musical tempo shifts are performed with ease and it’s hard to imagine the group hasn’t actually been performing together for years. Each composition pleasantly evolves into more than initially imagined, like a flower slowly opening revealing more and more with each moving petal. While the music isn’t overly complex each of the compositions changes so much so that in many cases by the compositions end you are listening to something entirely different from what you started with. Some well-placed violin is sprinkled throughout as are some nicely placed sitar-ish sounds as well as traditional prog elements like Mellotron and Hammond sounding keyboards. ***

Ouellette’s vocal style is wonderfully unique. He comes across as frail and tentative one minute and then confident and almost aggressive the next but all the while creating some of the most pleasing melodies. These are songs that will rattle around in your head for a long time. But on top of that many of the song contain quirky elements that take you off in unexpected musical excursions or moods. Ouellette splits his time between the drums, keyboards and lead vocals and is assisted by Sylvain Provost (guitar) Magella Cormier (drums), Norman Lachapelle (bass) plus a host of guest musicians. ***

The Circle of Madness clocks in at just under 41 minutes, which by today’s standards is short, but what it lacks in length it more than makes up for in creativity and pleasing compositions. For sheer musical satisfaction, I’d have to place Kaos Moon as one of my favorite releases of 2004. Every time I put it on it makes me feel great. For fans of melodic symphonic progressive rock I can’t recommend The Circle of Madness enough. ***