Vive la France!!! Bruno Parisse (he of the mighty Ruralfaune) was right on the money when he exclaimed that 2007 was a banner year for the French psychedelic underground. Yet of all the amazing projects that have sprung from the Gallic shores, Monks of the Balhill are certainly my favourite. These ?monks? ? in fact a pair of gentlemen named Vincent Caylet and Vincent Fribault ? are purveyors of pure aural hallucination. Cunningly spinning elusive apparitions of sound from an assortment of sources, in ?Cormoran Sophistry? Monks of the Balhill have struck lysergic gold.

Released on Italy?s promising Akoustic Desease imprint, and arriving in a slick wood-paneled hand-made digipack, ?Cormoran Sophistry? is the debut release from Monks of the Balhill. It is certainly an ambitious first step, seamlessly welding minimalist, drawn out guitar passages (almost calling to mind Richard Youngs at times) with atmospheric melodica and vocal incantations ? and that?s just the first song. Further into the record, dreamy pop psychedelia is toyed with before the floor drops out from underneath, engulfing everything in a restless sea of drone. The short but sweet ?Sic Corp Marenc? channels (VxPxC), but is waylaid by mountains of undulating guitar feedback when the 17-minute long noise epic ?Damacorne? takes shape. Monks of the Balhill conclude ?Cormoran Sophistry? by blending all the preceding elements, unleashing serpentine waves of mind-bending sound. This is sophistry of the best kind! 9/10 -- Bryon Hayes (21 January, 2008)