French psychedelic trio releases their sophomore album, The Cantos.

The band – Benjamin Monnereau (guitar, vocals), Guillaume Arancibia (guitar), and Antoine Le Gall (drums) – began in 2017, issuing their first recordings. A full-length album followed the next year, and now there is The Cantos. The music is rock, and to me it sounds heavy and inspired by stoner, progressive, and heavy psych bands. The early rock influences stretching back into the 1960s and 1970s are in there functioning as the bedrock to the band’s sound. Another way to think of it is that these elemental characteristics are the launching point for the music Little Jimi creates.

There are six longish tracks on the new album. “First Cantos” starts it all off, and it has an acoustic intro and an ethereal vocal bed that takes us into space in the first half, after which things turn heavier. The extended, fuzzy instrumental movement progresses into light doom before becoming buoyant in the final moments. “The Way” also opens gently, and it has more of a 1960s psychedelic feel. “Palace Afternoon” is a trip, a fuzzed out, dark Pink Floydian affair. It is a stunning, memorable piece.

Side two starts big on guitars, and even without a bass the heavy rhythm line is prominent at the beginning and the end on “Machetehew.” “Indian Rain” is the proggiest track while the closer, “Last Cantos XXIV,” has an uplifting feel to it. This music has a heaviness that I like but the compositions are transformed in concert with many other elements that act more like a conflux than a balancing. I am glad I listened. Recommended.

The digital album is out on Friday August 20^th with the LP version to follow on September 17^th through Mrs Red Sound and both versions can be had at Bandcamp.

Band photo by Christian Arnaud.

Links.

Bandcamp, https://littlejimi.bandcamp.com/album/the-cantos

Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/LittleJimi.music/

Mrs Red Sound, https://mrsredsound.com/