Franck Carducci - Sheeple

Franck Carducci is a multi-instrumentalist who started playing Hammond organ at five and then went on to learn guitar, bass and drums.  He joined his first band when he was fourteen and, in his twenties, he played with around twenty different bands of various styles.  Although Sheeple is his fifth studio album (including Naked, an acoustic album with Mary Reynaud) and his debut goes back fifteen years ago to 2011, for some reason he has been off my radar until now.  Thanks to this outstanding release that has all changed and I’m now not only familiar with Carducci, but it has sent me diving deeper into some of his collaborators, most notably Reynaud.  The title track opens the album and is a short organ instrumental with sheep noises (or sheeple?!?) that leads into the excellent, hard-driving AOR rocker “Self-Righteousness,” which has some great organ and guitar soloing from Anthony Honnet and William Remond, respectively.  “Sweet Cassandra” is up next and is the first of a three-part suite that is spread out through the album.  It’s a beautiful track with some folk tendencies that is largely just acoustic guitar, harmonica and vocals from Carducci and Reynaud.  The remaining parts of the suite pop up later with “Sweet Cassandra (Reprise),” a short instrumental with a mediaeval flair that has Franck accompanied by Roy Van Oost on flute, and “Sweet Cassandra (2019),” which is similar to the original, but with Franck handling everything.  At ten and a half minutes, “The Betrayal Of Blue” starts with laid-back, primarily acoustic psychedelia and then twists and turns through hard-edged rock passages that give it an element of intensity to quieter sections of psychedelic introspection.  It has a really playful tone, at times reminding me of his incredible label mate Rosalie Cunningham and even includes a brilliant theremin solo.  “The Limits of Freedom” kicks off with a blast of solo piano and then shifts into a classic AOR rocker with another blistering guitar solo.  With Carducci handling everything except drums and extra vocals, the darker and less playful “Love Or Survive” is a powerful thirteen-minute prog track that is often reminiscent of the early days of Yes.  The sheep noises are back again on “Do What You’re Told,” which is listed as a bonus track, and is a silly little, laid-back song that wraps things up with a funky blues groove and lyrics that repeat slight variations of the title. 

(Esoteric Antenna)