Fula - "The Beautiful, the Delicate and the True" - Reviews

Pour faire court, disons que "The Beautiful, The Delicate and The True" du groupe FULA, qui nous a envoye sa sympathique demo, est de la pop gothique qui a beaucoup de fraicheur, notamment par sa voix feminine. Cela fait penser a Lush, un group anglais du debut des anees '90 mais il n'y a pas ici grand chose de progreeif meme si l'album est tres agreable a ecouter. C'est deja ca!
Gilles Arrend
Prog-Resiste (Belgium Progressive Rock Magazine)
June 2003





Fula
The Beautiful, the delicate and the true

The cover depicts a beautiful Water Lily, glowing ghost-like from the centre of a black background representing the song “White Lilies” whose lyrics contain the albums title. The cover also reflects the experiences you’ll find within, from dark, atmospheric, powerful songs to sad, delicate, beautiful and uplifting ones.

It starts with a short, stomping keyboard driven instrumental called “Brazil” followed by “Ballerina Junkies” which has gorgeous mellotron washes, a strong guitar hook and ethereal female vocals similar to Judie Tzuke. “Siren” has a spooky intro, before launching into catchy, bouncy song with intimate lyrics. The title track “White Lilies” is a 9 minute moving lament that builds slowly with Josie Bostin’s vocals taking us down a melancholy paths into sun dappled areas of cascading piano and synth. The closing instrumental passage has a brilliantly timed short bass-line leading into a spectacular climax. “Buried” starts with a voice clip from 2001-A Space Odyssey, where the insidious computer “Hal” says in a calm cold voice “I’m sorry Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that” the song then bursts into a head-nodding heavy-rocker with many air-guitar moments. Next is a cinematic instrumental, “Save Our Souls” ‘soul’ stirring indeed with nice synthesiser and soaring guitar. “Code Red” is a hypnotic song, with fascinating time changes, nice female vocals and a superb ‘Tony Banks’ style keyboard solo at the end. We close with “Living in Pieces part 10” a short fast-paced keyboard instrumental.

This is a powerful, imaginative and beautiful quality-rock album with meaningful lyrics and lovely female vocals: a ‘must have’ CD for 2002. (Also features CD ROM photos and soundscapes).
Dave Kennedy (Classic Rock Society)
Rock Society magazine
nov 2002






Fula
the Beautiful, the Delicate and the true

The third album from Fula is and eight-track collection entitled The Beautiful, The Delicate and The True. This album is the first with vocalist Josie Bostin who joined the band in 2002 following the departure of Zoe Stafford and Nadeen Plant earlier. The album was recently remixed to bring the vocals further up. Dark Matter released in 1999 featured the vocal work of Zoe Stafford. Stafford has gone on to other projects and is presently with. Songs From Beyond The Merrygolight features the vocal work of Nadeen Plant. Nadeen is presently not working in music but will be featured in a follow up reissue of Fula's earlier work later in 2002.

The powerful progressive instrumental "Brazil" opens the album and is followed immediately by the lushly arranged "Ballerina Junkies" featuring layers of Josie's tender and sweetly sung vocals backed by a thick and mid-tempo guitar arrangement. Multiple guitar solos within the number continue to show Jason Gilman's virtuosity. Gilman left Fula just after the album was mixed. The vocals in the standout upbeat rocking tune "Siren" are stunning with layers working quite well with the band's lush wall-of-sound guitar- and keyboard-based arrangement. A contrast is clearly heard in the progressive ballad "White Lilies," sung as a single layer on the lightest keyboard and guitar arrangement with crisp percussion holding the rhythm section together. "Buried" is an upbeat rocker dominated again by thick instrumental arrangements, crisp percussion and Bostin's vocal layers.The album's second instrumental, "Save Our Souls" is dominated by moody soundtrack-style keyboards. A powerful and well-played Arjen Lucassen-style guitar solo compliments the sound. "Code Red" is a percussively and highly rhythmic rocker. Josie's vocal layers are supported by keyboard, guitar and crisp percussion musically similar to the style found on Dark Matter. We especially enjoyed the keyboard solos within the track. The album closes with "Living In Pieces Part 10" obviously the concluding instrumental of the epic with the same title from Songs From Beyond The Merrygolight that was not included there. One can clearly hear the original theme but the instrumental arrangement here is thicker and far morelush with vast keyboard excursions adding to the power of the tune.

It will be exciting to see Fula perform the material live in the coming months. The album is available at the band's website; Clearly worth a journey, this album is a very nice listen!.
Russ Elliott
Musical Discoveries
june 2002





Fula
The Beautiful, the delicate and the true

Originating from the UK, Fula have come up with an interesting and varied collection of tracks, but not easily or simply categorised. Certainly progressive elements are to be found, however, their strengths lie in the hypnotic and melancholic arrangements. The combination of Josie Bostin's multi-layered and delicate voice, and sparse keyboard parts, contrasting against the bands strongly guitar driven sound. By no means a heavy sound but perhaps drawing from bands like the Portishead, and combining some folk and bluesy elements. I said it wasn't easy to pigeon-hole. Fula's third album release sees the band with yet further personnel changes, which appear to have dogged the band from recording to recording. Vocalist Josie Bostin has departed and is replaced by Fiona Ford, and guitarist Jason Gilman takes his leave to make way for Simon Lind, but Fula have weathered these changes in the past and presumably will in the future.

The album opens with a restrained guitar instrumental Brazil, full of atmosphere and infectious lead motifs - a good opener. It was in fact the guitar parts throughout the album which gave each of the tracks a distinctive hook and possibly best illustrated during the second track Ballerina Junkies. A simple, rising and repetitive lead line carries the piece, creating a tension which works well with the biting lyrics and saturnine vocal melodies. In sharp contrast was the up-tempo Siren, a distinctly jaunty song with an almost Christmas frivolity to it (or perhaps it is just the time of year I started the review). I doubt, however, if this is the intention of the lyrical content of the track. Textural changes with the ballad opening to White Lilies, as piano combines with the dulcet tones from the vocals, which are again multi-tracked. Again the guitar features strongly, reminding me on this occasion of a seventies band Stone the Crows albeit without Maggie Bell's distinctive voice.

Although the album has a distinct sound, nearly all the tracks are different, not a bad thing really and Buried is no exception. A strong guitar riff being the mainstay with some interesting added percussion parts from Greg Boulton - again a catchy melody if not fully captured by the more sombre vocal lyrics. The final three pieces off the album, for me, were probably more towards the progressive side. Opening with the atmospheric and themic guitar instrumental Save Our Souls. The gentle piano and keyboard textures from Rob Gould forming a great canvas that nicely underpinned the solo section, certainly one of the highlights from the album. From this we move into the longest piece from the album in Code Red, clocking in at just under the ten minute mark. Some Crimsonesque guitar passages here which weave in and out of the vocal sections. The keyboards also come more to the forefront with some pleasant soloing during the middle section. The album closes with, Living in Pieces Pt 10 a rousing up-tempo instrumental, again featuring the keyboards of Rob Gould - a legacy from previous recordings and a fitting finale.

A different album and one that grew on me on each playing. The vocals took some time to adjust to, mainly due to the double tracking and the overall recording mix which had a distinct timbre to it that I could not pin-point. A somewhat dark and sombre affair throughout - perhaps Christmas was not the best time of year to review The Beautiful, The Delicate And The True. The CD is enhanced with a CD Rom section.
Bob Mulvey
Dutch Progressive Rock Pages Dec 2002







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