"Dancing With The Past" is the first solo disc, a huge sum of work, a monster of an album, almost entirely performed by an ultra gifted genius: The Multi-instrumentalist Kenn Nardi, will release a double CD containing an excess of twenty eight songs, this new collection of material freshly written is enhanced with leftovers dating back to his time off his main legendary band in 1994.

Indeed, Kenn Nardi is/was mastermind of ANACRUSIS, a very intriguing band, to say the least. His unique vision was the early blueprint of the mariage between Thrash & Prog Metal, from 1986-1993 he provided as guitarist/vocalist/producer and chief writer, arranger and lyricist a handful of experimental albums, still regarded as cult Classics, such as "Screams and Whispers" or my favorite "Manic Impressions" (1991).

After the unavoidable ANACRUSIS split-up in late 1993, stuck in a hiatus for over a decade, Kenn Nardi resurfaced in 2006 to publish a collection of acoustically-driven material under the CRUEL APRIL moniker...The band is now reforming!

Today, "Dancing With The Past" is a strong manifesto of his artistic freedom, innovative, mysterious and audacious, clearly an overwhelming unleashed flow of musical creativity for Kenn Nardi, in his archetypal way, a method successfully built by mixing his famous introspective mood and somber thematic with the other famous signatures elements of ANACRUSIS -both in the Progressive arsenal and in the mythical Techno-Thrash Orthodoxy- ("Await the Setting Sun")...You'll name it : Furious Harsh riffage/staccato double kick attack ("Ordinary"), shouting gang vocal parts and insane Screams of all kinds but also compensated by many keyboards layers and hyper sophisticated/orchestrated harmonies an audacious concept leading to a dreaming soundscapes and ambient overtones.

The violent burst of anger are merged with some ethereal, critical, gloomy  and spatial moments, those singular Dark moods are constantly celebrated with quirky instant and even darker arrangements while the core of the song always maintaining a tight melodic presence throughout.

The lead vocals are mostly clean but quite agressive, revealing a similarities with VIRGIN STEELE's David DeFeis roaring trademarks ("Creve Coeur") or Jon Oliva from SAVATAGE ("Unnecessary Evil") perhaps with a even more wide spectrum of abilities in the rarely used deep growls and also in the crying whispers or depressive complaints ("Armies Of One"). "Symbiotic" or the emotive "A Little Light" are on the edge of the Metal panorama with its psychedelic vibes, this expandible dimension is not easy to swallow at first, on the flip side "One World"/"Fragile" or "Blinding Lies" are in perfect coherence with the ANACRUSIS heritage, displaying many impressive textured parameters on par with the complexity of CORONER / TOXIK / WATCHTOWER & Co and with the dissonance mastery, borrowed from the avant-gardism savoir faire of VOIVOD. The atmospheric poetic lines of "The Runt" are in perfect opposition with the cold puzzling design of "Submerged" or the creepy suffocating pace of "The Scarlet Letter" but mostly "Beside Myself" in the hypnotic crawling tradition of KING DIAMOND style with this intense, nasty/nervous turning guitar motif. This eclectic release is in a good timing to help the starving fans waiting for the highly anticipated tour and the reunion shows expected for this summer in the old continent, the double silver disc pack wrapped in a Heavy duty 8 panel digipack with 36 page full color booklet will be released in a Limited edition of only 1,000 units, so don't waste your time and grab it while it last!<