LIZZARD: Eroded (ALTERNATIVE METAL): review / opinion to read on Music Waves

Like the lizard from which it takes its name, LizZard changes skin with each album. Very similar to Tool in its early days and later on taking a more atmospheric path, the French band took a more direct turn in "Shift". It took only two years for them to come back to us with their new album entitled "Eroded".

On this fifth album, LizZard unambiguously pursues its logic of conciseness, freeing itself in a certain way from the shackles of complexity. The trio can thus focus on other aspects that are no less demanding to implement, which consist in doing better with less if possible. Is the approach totally conscious or rather guided by instinct? We would lean towards the second option because it fits perfectly with the spirit of this fluid and catchy, luminous and addictive record.

From 'Blowdown' and 'The Decline', it is the song aspect that is emphasized and for which LizZard delivers a copy full of accuracy, of which each passage is obvious. There are no flaws, the melodies are particularly well done ('The Decline' and its pop chorus, 'Flood') without sophistication and with the right amount of choruses, the arrangements are concise and frictionless, the rhythmic ideas bring a great vitality to the tracks (the cymbals of 'Flood', the groove of 'Haywire' and 'Flood') and the riffs follow one another, all more creative the ones than the others ('Haywire' and its three superimposed guitars, 'Flood', the funky 'Hunted').

There is a deep change of atmosphere when resounds the melancholic and bewitching 'Eroded' whose arpeggios and twilight tone bring a side "Book Of Shadows" of Zakk Wylde. With two atmospheric interludes framing a heavy and monolithic 'Blue Moon', some of whose features could remind Klone, the beautiful dynamics of the beginning lose its bite but the effect of switching to a final with darker sensations is perfectly rendered. It is 'Avalanche' who has the great responsibility to close a record that one would wish to be endless. LizZard finishes his work as he started it, with the same concern for finesse and fluidity, although 'Avalanche' is more elaborate in its constitution, but with an exacerbated emotional intensity.

If the trajectory LizZard followed in 'Eroded' had been introduced to us by the last album, we would not have expected such a successful implementation. If each record of the Frenchmen brings its contribution in the evolution of the group, "Eroded" can be considered as a referential record that could mark a decisive step in the turn of the future work of the group. - Official website

LIZZARD

ERODED

PELAGIC

ALTERNATIVE METAL