Music like Ange

Ange is a French progressive rock band formed in September 1969 by the Décamps brothers, Francis (keyboards) and Christian (vocals, accordion, acoustic guitar and keyboards).

Ange was initially influenced by Genesis and King Crimson, and its music was quite theatrical and poetic. Its first success in France was the cover of a Jacques Brel song, Ces gens-là, on its second album Le Cimetière des Arlequins. The band provided its first concert on January 30, 1970 at the cultural center "La Pépinière", in Belfort, France. It performed 110 concerts in England from 1973 to 1976, opening for Genesis at the Reading Festival in England, on August 26, 1973, fronting some 30.000 listeners.

One of the reasons for which the band was unable to break through into the British market was because they sang in French. Ange eventually released an English-speaking version of its fifth album Par les fils de Mandrin (By the sons of Mandrin), which was hard to find and sold poorly, although this version has since been made available on CD. Unfortunately, after three albums, the quality of creation had started to decrease, and Par les fils de Mandrin was probably not a good choice to try to break into the British market. Au delà du délire, third album, could be the band's best effort and is recommended as the one to listen to as a starter, for newcomers to the Ange progressive phenomenon.