SAND

Review # 70. For those who are not familiar with the name Monarch Trail, I should inform you that they are from Canada, and their discography consists of 2 studio albums so far. The band is a trio, and it has been "built" around the Keyboardist and composer Ken Baird. (For the needs of the recordings they are using a few more musicians as guests).

Their style and sound is a keyboard-driven melodic Neo-Prog, which it brings to my mind bands like The Alan Parson's Project and/or Barclay James Harvest on some occasions. Sand, includes 7 tracks, with 3 of them being instrumentals (Station theme, Charlie's kitchen, Another silent world), and only 4 songs include vocals.

To be honest, I had no idea about this band, but because I read some really good reviews here in PA, I decided to give them a try. I added Sand in my music collection, and I am pleased with it. The album includes some beautiful "soundscapes", that fills your mind with beautiful images and travels you with its melodies. My only problem is that the use of keyboards at some points is too much, and that bothers me a bit.

The album's closing song is the 24-minute-long epic Sand, which is a really interesting composition and definitely one of the album's highlights; together with Missing and First Thoughts, always in my opinion. (But I believe that Sand should be including less long keyboard parts, and be a bit shorter).

I will rate it with 3.5 stars, hoping that the band will continue in the same melodic direction, but with fewer keyboards maybe. (I will give 4.0 stars in order not to "destroy" the very good average rating they have so far).