Thank you for choosing Awaken, after more than 25 years of faithfulness. You are always as adventurous as we knew and that's why you landed on our page. We wish you a happy discovery. MENU : INTRO | COVER SONGS | REVIEWS INTRO : WELCOME TO THE PARTY ! Dear friends, fans, newcomers, passing smiles, it seems you just reached the right page to get this mythic album about the most underground party you can imagine, a PARTY IN LYCEUM'S TOILETS! Maybe you know AWAKEN already. Or maybe you came here by chance and you don't know if you must buy this album or not ? In this case, please have a look below. It might help you. A lot. COVER SONGS : More about the cd? Volume 1 is made of AWAKEN's original songs, volume 2 features cover songs. Who are the original artists covered here ? Read this: CD 2 is made of cover songs. Here are the original artists : One Caress = Depeche Mode Eesom = Quincy Jones Send My Body Home = Dick Annegarn One Thing = Neil Young Best Kept Lies = Cold Chisel LA Is My Lady = Frank Sinatra Run Out Of Time = Genesis You're Really Out Of Line = Rufus Golden Age Dreams = Vanilla Fudge I'm Gonna Love You = Peter Criss Heart Of Me = Cerrone Nothing Else Matters = Metallica Chrysalide = Patrick Juvet Open The Kingdom = Philip Glass The Dance = Uriah Heep Sweet Thing = David Bowie Koyaanisqatsi = Philip Glass Shandi = Kiss This Is Love = Tony Banks Clouds And Rain = Gillan & Glover In Search Of England = Barclay James Harvest Tyger = Tangerine Dream Everybody = Jacksons Sweet Dream Machine = Supremes Come Into My Life = Supremes Love I Never Knew You Could Feel So Good = Supremes Something I Should Have Known = Matthew Fisher Taking It Back = Toto Jazzy = Renaud Lhoest Young Girls = Sparks Theme Once Upon A Time = Donna Summer Only The Fool Survives = Donna Summer Hearts To Heart = Earth Wind & Fire Moonwalk = Earth Wind & Fire Here Today = Paul McCartney The Candidate = Al Stewart Until = Bee Gees REVIEWS: SOME PEOPLE HAVE BEEN TOUCHED BY AWAKEN... IN A WAY: Wow, where do I start!? A 2 disc set from this European band with lots of drum machines, synths, organ, guitar, and what’s labeled as “a concept album about the darkest side of dreams”. Probably not for everyone, especially rockers, but pretty interesting and adventurous to say the least. Tracks range from the guitar driven punk of “I’ll Disagree” to the electronic dance approach of “Cold As My Heart” to the keyboard ballad “Carla’s Dream” to the rap direction of “Lycee Nase”. Some you’ll dig, some you’ll want to skip quickly! Disc 2 is the band’s unique interpretations of old pop and rock classics. Again it’s a very mixed bag of interesting choices, from Depeche Mode’s “One Caress” to an electronic take of Neil Young’s “One Thing” paired with Cold Chisel’s “Best Kept Lies” to a slowed down keyboard version of Metallica’s “Nothing Else Matters” [this one’s real good!] to Bowie’s “Sweet Thing”, all very keyboard dominated versions with drum machines and wild synth sounds. The covers’ disc includes 25 tracks, although there’s plenty more titles as there’s a number of medleys. Other covers include songs by Kiss, Peter Criss, Gillan/Glover, Genesis, Barclay James Harvest, The Supremes, Toto, Earth Wind & Fire, The Bee Gees,.... Not sure who’d I’d recommend this to. I suppose anyone’s who’s into keyboard stuff or who’d like to hear the covers. Definitely a very interesting collection of original and covered music, somewhat of a novelty, and strangely likable. (Kevin Julie, Universal Wheels) --------- Awaken est un groupe belge formé depuis le milieu des années 80. Ils ont sorti un album, Tales Of Acid Ice Cream. Le 2ème album, Party In Lyceum's Toilets, est décrit comme un concept album "about the darkest side of dreams" (pas besoin de traduire j'imagine). Un véritable ovni musical autrement dit, puisque Awaken (dont le nom est tiré du morceau de YES du même nom) explore les facettes les plus sombres de styles musicaux divers et variés, c'est le moins qu'on puisse dire. Tous les morceaux de ce disque ont été écrit entre 1988 et 2000, donc il n'y a aucune unité entre chaque titre. On trouve de tout ici : pop japonaise avec gros synthés (Cold As My Heart), heavy metal (I'll Disagree), metal prog (Neon's Of Lyceum's Toilets), ballade pop avec chant féminin (Down The Drain), rap (Lycée Nase), un dialogue délirant entre Britney Spears et Barry White (Britney and Barry) et même un long morceau progressif de 30 minutes à la fin (Four Dreams Suite). Ce sont surtout les claviers et les synthés de Gilles Snowcat qui occupent le terrain. Certaines sonorités sont hyper vieillottes, rappelant souvent la new wave ou même la dance music, et on entend sans peine que certains morceaux ont été composé à la fin des années 80. Parmi ses influences, on retrouve Tony Banks (certaines parties de synthés font clairement penser au Genesis des années 80) mais aussi Richard Clayderman (si si !!!) et Vangelis, pour un mélange pop - prog - new wave - dance music pour le moins incongru et difficile à assimiler au premier abord. Le 2nd CD, entièrement constitué de reprises, permet de mieux comprendre d'où viennent les influences du combo et son goût pour les mélanges à tout va : des reprises (souvent obscures, ce ne sont pas souvent des classiques qui sont choisis) de Patrick Juvet, David Bowie, Paul McCartney, Toto, Uriah Heep, Gillan-Glover, Kiss, Neil Young, Genesis, Vanilla Fudge, Tangerine Dream, Depeche Mode et j'en passe !!! Un programme éclectique et alléchant, n'est-il pas ? Mais ces reprises façon "soirée karaoké" sont super indigestes à écouter puisque essentiellement jouées avec une boite à rythme, un synthé et le chant pas toujours terrible de Gilles Snowcat. Au pire, ça peut faire un bon blind test (ardu quand même !). Chez Awaken, ce ne sont pas les idées qui manquent, mais je préfère prévenir que le fan de prog risque d'halluciner car la vision du prog qu'ils ont se situe à 1000 lieux des canons du genre. Reste que si le groupe se décidait d'enregistrer un véritable album, bien construit, homogène et tout, ça pourrait nous donner une belle tuerie. Car pour l'instant, sans être une oeuvre d'art, on reste un peu dans un patchwork intéressant étalé sur plus de 10 ans, complètement décalé et à ne pas prendre au sérieux. (David, Forces Parallèle) --------- Out of Brussels, Belgium comes AWAKEN, a very strange sounding band. They sent me their CD, which happens to be a double CD. Musically it is an adventure through all kinds of musicstyles. AWAKEN is making a mix of 80s Pop, New Age, Psycho Rock, Hardrock and Neo-prog, but most of the time they sound like some sort of 1980s Electronic Popband. Well, the start wasn't that bad, with the 80s Hardrocksong "I'll disagree", which reminded me of RATT. The rest of the 2 CDs has nothing to do with that Hardrockstyle created on the opening tune. Songs like "Cold as my heart" (80s Italo-pop disco a la SABRINA!!!), "Lycee Nase" Send my body home" and "L.A. is my lady" are just pure Pop in an 80s approach and they have absolutely nothing to offer for fans of any of the musicgenres we promote. Happily, there are still some songs that may appeal to soem of you, such as the keyboard driven Neo-prog songs "Eesom" and "One thing/Best kept lies". Still this is something very different than the usual stuff we discuss, so better first check out their site (...) (Gabor Kleinbloesem, AOR Reviews) ---------