Forq
Thrēq

For my first review, I'm diving into a wonderful group, but not an easy one to handle.

FORQ, with their third album (“Batch” in 2015 and “Forq” in 2014), are a band that is musically difficult to categorize; certainly, the term “fusion” is fitting, but describing all the facets from which their music is born is probably a more lengthy task than listening to the album itself, which lasts less than 40’.

Henry Hey (Rod Stewart, David Bowie, Rudder, Lucy Woodward) on keyboards, Michael League (Snarky Puppy, Bokanté, Banda Magda, Kirk Franklin) on bass, Jason "JT" Thomas (Snarky Puppy, D’Angelo) on drums, and Chris McQueen (Snarky Puppy, Bokanté, Foe Destroyer) on guitar are the musicians, authors, and creators of “Thrēq”, an album recorded in Brooklyn, New York, and released on August 4th of last 2017.

A magical album that captivates you from the intro of “Taizo”, where Hey uses the keyboard as a continuo bass to introduce the “voice” of League’s distorted bass. It takes you to an engaging musical world, making your head bob or your fingers tap trying to follow Thomas' tight rhythms.

The devastating keyboards of H.H. and the surf-rock bass in “Cowabunghole” (title by Becca Stevens) are absolutely worth mentioning, while on McQueen's rockabilly rhythm in “Fenix”, there unfolds an extraordinary "Michele Lega" line which is followed by a powerfully groovy solo by the leader of Snarky Puppy.

In “Stannic”, rather brief but rich with enchanting sounds, there are moments surprisingly in the style of Alphaville, while in “Blue Diamonds” it feels like you are involved in a Jean-Michel André Jarre concert before meeting the detuned-guitar of the Texan guitarist.

Throughout the album, McQueen's guitar gives you goosebumps with a sonic approach, bordering on microtonal music, with distorting effects and riffs between '60s rock and grunge, while the sounds produced by the orchestrating keyboardist of the musical “Lazarus” are a perfect glue between jazz, rock, and funk.

On the other hand, we find Michael League, who enjoys and experiments with sounds and solos that he generally sparingly uses with Snarky Puppy (except live, fortunately!), but it will probably be his last album, as from the imminent North American tour starting in February, he will be replaced by Kevin Scott (Wayne Krantz, Colonel Bruce Hampton).

Essentially, it’s the search for sound (even in the Tarantino-distopian “Melt”) that dominates in an album that associates multiple musical genres, but despite the technicalities and polyrhythms, the album is enjoyable, immediate, and entertaining. It’s “Tea Time”!

I hope I have piqued your curiosity and happy listening: music helps to not feel the silence within that surrounds us