JULIEN DAMOTTE - Trapped (2010) Prog Metal From France *SammyLand Release*

01. Born Dead
02. Opening Chapter
03. The Voice Within Your Soul [feat. Gus Monsanto]
04. Eternal Love [feat. Gus Monsanto]
05. The Inner Struggle [feat. Gus Monsanto, Matt Haussy, and Buzz McK]
06. What You've Been Through
07. Dying
08. Death [feat. Gus Monsanto]
09. Ending Chapter

Produced by Julien Damotte
Mixed by Kevin Codfert at X-Fade Studios
Mastered by Jurgen Lusky at House Of Audio


Julien Damotte is a young musician from the south of France. Passionate by rock, metal and progressive music, our guy released his first demo in 2004 and this is only six years later that his first album is finally out. Trapped is an ambitious project and features famous musicians like IA, Godin or Gus Monsanto which, as you probably know, used to be the singer of Adagio. Clearly progressive Trapped is dark and melancholic but features nice melodies and a certain personality. This is a good start no doubt…

Trapped is a nice progressive metal album. Not really similar to prog a la Dream Theater but more with the influences of bands like Symphony X or Ayreon without being a clone of course, this is just influences here. The music is melancholic, atmospheric, complex but this is never a demonstration of technicality which is cool. The strong point of the album come from the melodies which are good and efficient, it just works and when you'll listen to the album, you'll quickly get into the music. On the other hand, for a progressive release, Trapped maybe lack of craziness and the songs remains a bit simple. There is a progressive aspect but this is a bit too "cool" and just too classic. However it' easy to feel that Julien was just a bit shy, I mean that with time we will probably see something lot deeper, the base being already there but not fully developed.

More considered as a project than a simple basic band, Trapped features guest appearances of people like Christophe Godin, IA of Freak Kitchen for an excellent solo on "Ending Chapter" or Gus Monsanto. And this is cool because it gives some different orientation to the music, it creates real breaks in the universe of Julien Damotte and truly interesting side to the album. With a good production Trapped is solid, not perfect as you know but honest and really promising.

Trapped maybe lacks a bit of energy sometime but despite this little problem, the album, for a first release is really promising. I don't know what Julien Damotte is already preparing but I'm sure that the dude will do great things in the future. This is maybe just an impression but I have the feeling that Julien, if he finds the way to "unleash the fury" will surprise more than one fans of progressive metal. Let's keep an eye on this band ladies and gentleman.

Website: http://www.juliendamotte.com