Album Review
Title:  Noble
Artist:  Versailles Philharmonic Quintet
Release date:  July  16, 2008
versailles.syncl.jp/

     Calling Versailles Philharmonic Quintet a rock band would be like calling the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel a painting.  Rock band doesn't begin to describe the immersive experience of listening to Noble, Versailles first full length album, nor the fantasy that they are carefully crafting through the music.

     Each track is a carefully played story that's part speed metal, part gothic rock and several dashes of rock opera.  "Zombie" is frightening and decadent; the double bass drum and quickly punctuated guitar riffs creates a background that's almost like a staggering creature of the dead clawing its way out of the earth.

     It all starts to sound similar after awhile, what with all the guitar solos, double bass drum and synthesized violins that pop up at seemingly random intervals.  But this is not a bad thing, like a dramatic and beautiful fantasia composed for the guitar, you start to expect the unexpected.  Noble manages to balance beautifully played music with a baroque sensibility that is everything you'd expect and want from Versailles Philharmonic Quintet.

TRACKLIST
1. Prelude
2. Aristocrat's Symphony
3. Antique in the Future
4. Second Fear -Another Descendant-
5. zombie
6. After Cloudia
7. windress
8. The Revenant Choir (new take)
9. to The Chaos Inside
10. SUZERAIN
11. History of The Other Side
12. Episode