Like a cloud of smoke, The Tangent’s line-up has always been a fleeting thing but creator Andy Tillison has never given up on the name no matter how many times he has been forced to dissolve the members. Over the past 11 years he has remained constantly at the helm of his prog-rock ship and it’s thanks to his vision and need to produce music that The Tangent name still lives on.

Le Sacre Du Travail (InsideOut), is the seventh studio album from Tillison’s musical baby, which sees a set of old and new faces joining the fold. The group’s first concept album, the title translates to ‘The Coronation Of Work’ and its 5 movements tell the story of everyday working life as seen from the frontman’s perspective.

Embedded with Tillison’s legendary cynicism, the album is a sprawling composition of well-crafted and sophisticated music that combines classical symphonies with electric keys and impressively engineered guitar solos. A well thought-out piece of work, Le Sacre Du Travail fails to become stale or repetitive despite the long 10/20-minute tracks that the album mostly comprises of, as the music within these extensive pieces continues to surprise and arouse your ears at every turn.

Musically, it’s very difficult to fault this album but lyrically Tillison’s work is easier to criticize. ‘Afternoon Malaise’ holds some particularly lacklustre comments, some of which are concerning BBC veteran DJ Steve Wright and it’s these utterances that sound more like wittering’s on rather than a singer attempting to entertain or in this case, express his opinions on the nature of the current world.

At other times however, Tillison does provide some valuable social commentary but the 50/50 balance between these two opposites is too even to justify giving the frontman a large amount of song-writing praise here, which is sometimes appropriate but not wholly justifiable with this record.

Le Sacre Du Travail is an album that The Tangent fans and prog-rock enthusiasts alike will undoubtedly enjoy feasting their ears on and even though the lyrics may not be everyone’s cup of proverbial tea, the music certainly will or at least it should be.

7/10

Emma Quinlan

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