ESCAPE TO HORIZON

Although their debut release was a band affair, this follow-up (seven years later) is more a one man effort. Laurent Simonnet (keys, drums, bass) is surrounded by guests (amongst whom Roine Stolte) who helped him putting this album together.

There are no fundamental changes between both albums: the music sounds as spacey as on the first album and corresponds more to the space genre IMO: ''Llona'' is the best example. It almost sounds as a ''Tangerine Dream'' track.

The link with ''Land's End'' is again very much palpable as well in the opening song titled ''Aquatic Fiction''. This is one of the two songs that features Roine. The other being the very good ''From Here To Eternity'' which should sound more familiar to TFK fans. It is a highlight.

Actually, there is nothing wrong with this album. It displays some fine keyboards layers combined with the skills of the guest guitar players who are dispensing their skills in an efficient manner. As Greger has rightly mentioned, they bring their own contribution and avoid that this album is too much received as a pure keyboards oriented work. They add a brilliant diversity to the work.

This album is very pleasant all the way through. Some quiet and atmospheric music to savour on a Sunday afternoon. Some Hackett-oriented acoustic guitar to start ''This Mystic Time'' are such a fine intro to this beautiful piece of music. Another highlight IMO.

There is nothing to do, I quite like this album and this spacey music. Even if it is a pure instrumental work, it ''speaks'' to me. Emotion, melody, inspiration. OK, there are some Floydian rip-offs (''Past To Present''), but I quite like these sounds while played with such skills. This is my favourite song from this album. But I have the same feeling during the closing number. Yes, I like this album very much. It is not the most inventive but it is extremely pleasant.

Four stars.