Stan-X: Heritage

The Heritage album is the second effort from French jazz fusion outfit Stan-X, which supposedly sees the band head into a slightly more rock direction. Having said that to me, this is out and out jazz and at the risk of sounding harsh, pretty tame jazz at that.

More an album that meanders from gentle theme to gentle theme than one that demands attention, or grabs you and gives you a good shake, Heritage uses a mix of bass slaps, parping keyboards and gently funky little stabs of guitar to get Stan-X's message across. However the general vibe of the album is way too similar from song to song to make for a memorable experience and I found the whole journey to be rather frustrating. The musicianship on show is unquestionably high, but Stan-X really need to look at stretching their musical horizons and bringing some different angles to their songs not only to make them stand out from the crowd, but to actually stand out from one another.

Whether it is the piano whisper of "Meteor", the guitar led "Alliance", or the bass throb of "Equateur" it is hard not to feel that there's just not quite enough to really get your teeth into. Nothing here falls into the category of bad, but more inspiration, or at least a change of tempo really is required to stop your mind from wandering to everywhere except the music.

Heritage is a pleasant listen and if a pleasant jazz-fusion album that won't challenge you in any shape or form is what you are after then look no further. Unfortunately I feel that most potential listeners will view this as little more than well performed background music.

Track Listing
1 - Hello Kid
2 - Delta
3 - Identité
4 - Equateur
5 - Stan-X
6 - Djigolo
7 - Memory
8 - Alliance
9 - Prélude
10 - Why
11 - Fiction
12 - Météor
13 - Bonus

Added: May 31st 2011
Reviewer: Steven Reid
Score:
Related Link: Musea Records
Hits: 2124
Language: english

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