Boheme [Import]

"Anasthasia" starts the album on a dark, eerie, and slightly ominous note with a very tribal sound with haunting flutes and a haunting ambience that gives the song a feel of like drifting through the forests of the Alps with nearby storms. Eventually the song gets more and more intense until it suddenly ends at just less than two minutes length. The echoes of "Anashthasia" perfect blend into the drama of my favorite track on this album "Bohemian Ballet". This is one of their best 'studio' album tracks that they've ever created. At first, the clanging dance sound effects would imply a Latin folk track but it becomes a very intense, dramatic, and dark song. Things get even better when it becomes a vibrant and energetic dance song with haunting and bizarrely amplified Eastern European voices backed by the intense melody. This song is my favorite song on this entire album. "Marta's Song" is sheer beauty. After the dramatic darkness of "Bohemian Ballet", we emerge into the sunniness of "Marta's Song" which is another one of the highlights of this album. The song has a really excellent and exotic rhythm and the same is said about the haunting Bulgarian chants as well. Add that to a really warm and energetic melody and you have a really uplifting classic for the coming ages. "Gathering" is a much darker and more ominous track with a very futuristic production yet it also blends in ancient chorus and a really dark but never forboding atmosphere to create another intriguing and amazing classic. "Lament" is a really heartbreaking yet joyous song with a very strange electronic voice effect and bizarrely amplified voice effects. The melody is really awesome as well and the result is another highlight on this album. "Bulgarian Melody" is the strangest track on this CD. Although it starts with a dark and very eerie note and growing more and more dramatic, it calms down and becomes a very odd piano ballad with Bulgarian vocals amidst sweet and beautiful background piano in the background which almost gives the song a slight 1940s tone to it. While I totally disagree with a reviewer saying that this song is god-awful, it does feel sort of out of place against the other songs on this album but nonetheless it is a really great song. As it reverts back to the eerie sound that was present at the beginning, it morphs into a sweeter melody which becomes the track "Deep Folk Song" which is just a one minute interlude track but has a really vibrant French accordion style to it. In a way it's more of like an interlude intro into the vibrant classic "Freedom Cry". This is a really fun and actually a very bright, sunny and really happy song without being cheesy and is actually a very sophisticated song with an edgy and funky beat and a French accordion sound to it that gives the idea of a dance in an open paved plaza in Paris right after a storm moves out. A really amazing song it is. The song gracefully transitions into the next song "Twosome" which is another highlight on this album. This song has a rather slightly ominous melody but also a very joyous and exotic dance club sound. The Eastern Indian chanting gives the song a really colorful sound. It's hard to really explain this track but it's a really awesome song that needs a listen. "Café Europa" is a really strange track with a stormy vibe and Asian exotic instruments. The song becomes a very club-oriented dance song that surely would make for excellent dance club music. While it's a very good song, it doesn't stack up as high as the other songs on this album. Still, it's a great song. The live version is incredible! "Kathrina" is a very spooky track. It begins with a very misty sharp-sounding flute or other wind instrument and becomes a very dark and haunting track with African beats and strange ominous melody. This is the darkest track on this album and it's a good one at that! The album closes with what I can safely say is the best track on this album which is the title track to this CD. While much of the album is dark and somewhat stormy in nature, the closing title track has a very happy and absolutely uplifting vibe and has a funky and exotic rhythm and colorful vocal effects. To me, this is like the sun shining bright after a major storm moving away into the east. This song brings an already phenomenal album to a glorious finish.

Their debut album may have been what brought them into the spotlight but the way I look at it, "Boheme" was where they reached their peak although "Music Detected" may offer competition but these two albums have enormously different styles that it's impossible to compare them but they both showed that Deep Forest were unafraid to go into uncharted territory with their music. "Boheme" to me, built on the greatness of their debut and the result is what I consider to possibly be their best album that they've ever put out to date. I strongly suggest that you get a hold of a copy of this album. I don't know how much I can recommend it but I cannot do this album justice with this review. That's all I can say.