With the relative critical success of Morse Code's debut album La Marche Des Hommes in 1975 the band was able to gather a rather sizeable following within their home province of Québec. The band was also preparing to unleash the ace up their sleeve with their 2nd release for Capitol Records, a progressive concept piece of sorts entitled "Procréation" which lyrically touched upon themes of death and rebirth. Due to the subsequent success of their debut album the band managed to convince their record company to give keyboardist and main writer Christian Simard creative control to compose the twenty six minute opus which became the title track. The band had already been moving in a more theatrical direction in concert and had been trying out their newest creation live. The album was preceded by a single called "Punch", with "Image" on the flip side, which was released in the spring of 1976 again with the hopes of attracting the disco market. While certainly not as abysmal as "Cocktail" from their first record, both of these tracks don't really seem to fit in with the rest of the record although "Punch" is a pretty decent up tempo number.
The band makes it perfectly clear what kind of a sound their going for with the opening instrumental track "Précréation" which has a very strong Genesis feel to it, from Simard's buoyant keyboard work to the inspired flute playing and guitar work delivered by Daniel Lemay. It's also easy to hear why bassist Michel Vallée and drummer Raymond Roy were placing high in the individual performance music polls in the province at the time. With the two of them working in perfect unison and holding down the bottom end so well, they proved to be the ultimate rhythm section for both Simard and Lemay's solo flights. Vallée in particular gets a fantastic, meaty sound out of his five stringed bass throughout. "Procréation" is divided into three distinct sections and takes up more than half of the record, it's definitely the showpiece and certainly the most ambitious set of music the band ever committed to tape. The track is full of varying moods and the third and final ten minute section certainly is the most emotional as well. Christian Simard's music coupled with Jean Robitaille's fantastic lyrics make not only the title track a winner but the whole album feels like one stellar, complete piece of music.
Procréation features a band firing on all cylinders musically and while La Marche Des Hommes laid the foundation for their sound, Procréation took everything to the next level in dramatic fashion. The band toured behind this release with an expanded stage show for three months around Eastern Canada but even with that, they needed to be able to reach more people outside of Québec for them to be able to continue. Morse Code would venture to the U.K. in the hopes of achieving that for their third and final album Je Suis Le Temps. Procréation is quite simply the bands crowning achievement.
Track Listing
1) Précréation
2) Qu'Est-Ce T'es V'nu Faire Ici
3) Nuage
4) L'Eeau Tonne
5) Des Hauts Et Des Ha!
6) De Tous Le Pays Du Monde
7) Procréation
8) Punch (Bonus Track)
9) Image (Bonus Track)
Printer Friendly Page
Send to a Friend
