L'heptade

French Canadian prog-rockers Harmonium’s studio swan song, L’heptade, is a double album where no track is expendable. Released as punk exploded, it’s perhaps the least punk record ever made, and all the better for it: On “Comme un fou,” spidery percussion and oscillating synth arpeggios collide with dreamy folk melodies, all threaded together by Serge Fiori’s warm vocals. Then there’s “Chanson noire,” an eight-minute, Latin-jazz-infused odyssey that boasts the vocal dexterity of Sheer Heart Attack-era Queen, and is anything but bleak.