Gargamel! slams together a high-volume mix of metal, funk, reggae, jazz and rap. They also toss in a healthy dose of humor that keeps them from being one of those dead serious bands that are also deadly dull.
Another foreign review of Fields of Happy, this time from www.metalact.com:
No need to feel uncomfortable if you won't be able to frame Gargamel! within one specific musical genre. Not even in two, or three. It's ok, no problem, friends will still see you as a musical expert. Anyway, what I am doing it's useless at some point, what happens on “Fields of Happy” is like when you see something extremely funny and try to tell someone else about it and you get no reaction but those perfunctory smiles. So you gotta be there, in our case to have listened already. Florida is quite a home for a bunch of sick bands and Gargamel! is amidst them. That only for a start and with this occasion I told you where they came from too.
Mainly it will be funk metal, then some jazz, some prog, some hardcore, some core, some breakbeat, some pop, some rock n roll and some others. Humor abounding, blacker or whiter, that depends, but mostly the black one, as it if it wouldn't have been, it wouldn't have been told of. Thus we have a twisted album as I‘ve rarely seen. I already write trivialities, so I will repeat instead: you really need to play it to be able to taste it and hear how good these guys are with the instruments.
CHECK OUT THIS REVIEW FROM progressia.net TRANSLATED FROM FRENCH INTO ENGLISH BY BABELFISH.COM
To billion parsecs of Norwegian Gargamel already chroniqué in our pages, here Gargamel!, with a point of exclamation, please, which translates inter alia the enthusiasm of the chronicler when one asks him to write some lines on the new album - the fourth - of this at the very least whimsical floridien group. Gargamel! chose the extremes, alternation between the minefield and the field of daisies... a mined field of daisies, all things considered.
Exploiting contrasts, the music of the group often combines croonés verses and refrains vomits ("Da Devil's Bawlz", "Cold & Twitchy"), while proposing completely unexpected digressions inside certain titles ("Rainy Day Fun Book "," Dad Didn't Expect Supper") which is not without pointing out Shaolin Death Squad, in more concise. Between two storms, Gargamel! propose the poetic ones and refreshing interludes like "Eat out of my Butt" or "Find the Prostate" which finish drawing up the portrait of this group, supplemented by the presence of sounds worthy of the best synthetizers of the golden age of Bontempi.
Called Mandaddy, vocalist of its state, has strong similarities with Dave Gahan (Depeche Mode)... at least when it sings, since the overshrill or cavernous howls also form part of its register, rather extended and extremely controlled in addition. In this exercise, it evokes Mike Patton most virulent. Handling humour in a style which generally does not lend itself to it (attention, one howls, is not necessary to laugh with us), Gargamel! will appear familiar to the tolerant amateurs of Frank Zappa or Mr. Bungle.
If the formula tends to be blown somewhat on the end, the unit remains very largely advisable with the fans of Faith No More or System Of A Down, equipped with a developed direction of humour. Once again, and it is from now on almost a habit, the puff of fresh air arrives to us of a small American local group.
PRETTY WEIRD, HUH... The webzine review site is Progressia.net
"Orlando's GARGAMEL! is a band every fan of heavy music should see -- an amazing combination of ability and dark buffoonery that singlehandedly obliterates every cynical, negative connotation of the term local band. If you haven't yet caught this schizoid metal spectacle's live show, by all means, flog yourself, then go get in the car. It's marvelous. They mix styles as easily as they mix technique, humor, and showmanship." - Scott Harrell, St Pete FL Weekly Planet.
"Gargamel! has their own vocal acrobat in the form of the maniacal Mandaddy. Imagine a zoo run by Frank Zappa with a monkey house built from Iron Maiden albums" - Conor Mitchell, Gainesville FL Sun.
The band has been the Orlando Weekly readers' top pick for "Best Metal Act" for 2003-2006 "Best of Orlando" editions. GARGAMEL! has shared the stage with such nationally known artists as GWAR, Anthrax, Dog Fashion Disco, Tub Ring, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, Genitorturers, Mushroomhead, Nonpoint, Bad Acid Trip, Skindred, and Skeleton Key, to name a few.
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