Sanctuary 2021

"Kinda fascinating heavy-tinged rock sound seasoned with pop / catchy spices should be acceptable for me. A French rock project HELIUM STATION were founded in 2019 in Toulouse mainly by the frontman / multi-instrumentalist Fabrice LACOURT. "Sanctuary" was released in May 2021 as their second full-length album featuring Fabrice's incredible guitar technique and Benjamin MARMIER's superbly strict drumming. Though some tracks, especially the first two "Simple Life" and "One Night Pain" have drastically heavy / metallic texture flavoured with progressive essence, this album is created with decent rock structure plus apparent pop aroma.

"Simple Life" could be called a masterpiece for them I imagine. Fabrice's uptempo, energetic, vivid guitar playing definitely leads themselves to artistic progression. Female vocals are powerful too. Guess the audience would get drenched in their incredible fantasy and absorbed perfectly. Via "One Night Pain" we could feel that Haken meet Journey ... heavy rock with tasty understandable digestive melodic appearances. "Heaven's In Your Eyes" is one of my favourite blues rock tracks of theirs crystallized with powerful voices based upon deeply bluesy melody lines. "Be Yourself", that possesses delicious, delightful light touches, reminds me of a similarity to 70s discotheque music or something. The titled track involves quite mysterious, stable, settled atmosphere all around. On the whole, this opus is an excellent rock one with full digestive melody lines and acceptable rhythmic bases, not progressive enough though. A good creation, nonetheless. :)"