Paul J. No, is a French multi-instrumentalist and singer living in Barcelona. He is most well known for his contributions in Lunear. In this French band, who have released five studio albums, he takes care of the keyboards and lead vocals. However besides his membership in this act he has also a musical project on his own. Under the moniker of Midrone he has released several albums. His latest as Midrone was released in 2025 and got the title Foreverness Revisited. Strangely enough the songs on his latest release are not brand new written compositions. Because for this album he used complete re-recording and modernization of a collection of demos he originally wrote between 2012 and 2013. At the time he named this collection of songs Foreverness. For those re-recording and modernization he got the help of his musical friends of Lunear. Namely JP Benadjer on guitar and Seb Bournier on drums. Paul himself handles vocals, guitar, synths, and programming. The album was recorded between 2024 and 2025. The time they were not that busy with Lunear. The name of the album Foreverness Revisited of course revers to the new version of Foreverness. The songs are revisited so to speak. The result is an album which balances between melodic classic rock, 80s electro influences, and accessible progressive rock with strong pop harmonies. The ten songs have a melancholy narrative style and are comparable to acts such as The Beatles, The Alan Parsons Project, Tears For Fears and of course Lunear. The only differences with Lunear is that everything sounds more mainstream compared to them. In general, the songs are more accessible than what Linear presents. Which certainly does not mean that the material on this album is worse than what we hear from them. It is just that fewer influences from progressive rock are audible. But they are certainly still present. Just listen to songs like Springtime Nights, Arabian Wonders and The Story Of Jimmy Jack and you will understand that Paul certainly hasn't forgotten his progressive rock influences when writing and recording this album. After listening to this album intensely, I can only conclude that while it is certainly a beautiful album in general, it does not reach the musical level we hear on the albums he releases with his musical friends from Linear. The difference lies in the progressive rock element, which comes more to the fore with this act than with what he composes on his own. But as mentioned before, it is certainly not bad and definitely worth listening to. However, sometimes you have musical preferences, and those are certainly allowed to be expressed. Nevertheless, I want to give a thumbs up for what is musically achieved on Foreverness Revisited. Midrone delivers less prog, but certainly no less appealing! *** Henri Strik (edited by Tracy van Os van den Abeelen) Where to buy? |
