A MOMENT BEYOND TIME

Excellent debut album release from Canada's VISIBLE WIND combining excellent musicianship with clever and complex song writing. "A Moment Beyond Time" delivers some wonderful musical moments and actually carries a little CAMEL-like influence. Songs are varied and move from Jazz imaging to heavier musical moments (not unlike that of RUSH and SAGA). VISIBLE WIND have an original sound and the instrumental moments are the highlight for me on this album where the combined talents are showcased. They guys get into some wicked jams with standout keyboard and guitar interplay. A complete and magical album full of twists and turns and a remarkably professional debut outing. For those who were unable to get their hands on the origianl CD pressing, please note that this has been re-released with a couple of bonus tracks and new liner notes and photos. As talked about the re-release contains a superb new '99 re-recording of the titel track "A Moment Beyond Time" which now run over 10 mins and is smothered in the ol' mellotron. Go and buy this album if you do not have it! You need this in your life!

"A moment beyond time" is a progressive rock record from the Montreal band Visible Wind. The tracks have many influences. The drums often sound like on the Jadis' "More than meets the eye" album. The lead singer has a bit the voice of John Wetton. The first track "Behind the curtain" is a New Age introduction sounding like a good Tangerine Dream track of the mid 80's. The track "A moment in time" is VERY catchy: it has a vintage rhythmic & ambient organ and modern melodic keyboards, a loud and bottom bass sound and fast & complex drums a la Jadis; the electric guitar solo has the Gary Chandler's style in a less flamboyant style; regardless of the organ, some bits of this track could be mistaken for a Jadis' track. "Soleil d'aube" starts peacefully and invites to relaxation; it is sung in French: there are quality acoustic guitars and floating keyboards, followed by an echoed guitar solo and complex drums. "Chasing the skyline" used to be the musical theme of the progressive rock show on the CKRL radio in Quebec City, around 1992: the show was named "DANGEREUSES VISIONS": the excellent track is quite progressive and rhythm changing; the keyboards are made of vintage organ and more modern ones, and one can really feel some fusion and hard rock elements on this track; some bits slightly remind Saga around 1980 and Yes' "Drama", especially the later parts. The catchy, addictive and VERY progressive "Ulysse's return" contains excellent lead & backing vocals, and the sound is quite flashy and modern: it is almost an FM prog song! "Seeking the moon" is another catchy and addictive song, full of excellent clean & brief discrete guitar notes a la Marillion or Pendragon; the lead vocals and the overall air are memorable; the background rhythmic organ is not too outdated. "Solitude" is a beautiful electroacoustic guitar track, having the Rush's "Broon's Bane" sound. The not bad "The faded years" is a more conventional art rock track which less retains the attention. The last track, "A moment beyond time", has some IQ's influence, as reveal the moog-like solos reminding "Tales from the lush attic", the rhythmic piano and the background organ near the end reminding "Dark matter".

Rating: 4.5 stars

This is a French Canadian band who sing in English except for one track. Keyboards are the main focus here, although there is some soaring guitar at times.These guys do have their own sound, although I was reminded of SAGA a couple times.

"Behind The Curtain" is a short instrumental with spacey synths. "A Moment In Time" opens with lots of synths and drums. Some nice guitar after a minute and vocals follow. Pulsating organ 2 1/2 minutes in with chunky bass. Soaring guitar follows. "Soliel D' Aube" opens with acoustic guitar as French vocals and synths comes in. Best part of the song is 2 1/2 minutes in when the guitar solos and bass throbs.

"Chasing The Skyline" is one of the best songs and an instrumental at that, lots of time changes and some great guitar work makes this the albums highlight as far as i'm concerned. It opens with pulsating organ ala GENESIS. "Ulysse's Return" is mellow with synths to open. Drums and a fairly heavy sound takes over. It settles when vocals come in. Spoken words follow. Yes this is a concept album. "Seeking The Moon" opens with drums and synths as almost spoken vocals come in. Not a fan of this one. "Solitude" features gentle acoustic guitar melodies throughout. "The Faded Years" is a light tune with the focus on the vocals. Not a fan. "Running Backwards" is heavier and more aggressive.

Barely 3 stars.

This Canadian band has opted for a harder / poppier sound in comparison with their debut and rather pleasant album : "Catharsis". While that one was full of gentle and peaceful moments, it won't be so often the case with this record although the opening track might mislead you. "Ulysse's Return" is the best representation of this evolution.

Vocals are mostly nice and since they are Canadian, one song ("Soleil d'Aube") will be sung in French. Not too bad, but not a memorable track niether. One of the best number on this album is the instrumental "Chasing The Skyline". Fully keyboards oriented, it is also one of the harder than average songs.

Some week song even, like "Seeking The Moon". It's funny how it sounds as "Duran, Duran" one. Poppish and too mellowish to my taste. The same (poor) feeling applies to "The Faded Years". To remain in this "New Romantic" mood, you only need to listen to "A Moment In Time" and its "Spandau Ballet" vocals type. But I can not really complain about the latter since I was rather interested in this musical genre.

To be diversified there will even be a sort tribute to Hackett ("Solitude") : a nice acoustic guitar track ("Horizon's", here am I). As far as intrumentals are concerned, is there anyone out there that can tell me the need for this twenty-one second track at the end of the album (? - this is the name of the track : question mark).

The longest song (over ten minutes) is also on the heavy side of their work (especially during the intro). It will hold some full symphonic parts as well (finally !) thanks to a very good guitar solo. It is the most elaborate song of this album. Probably because they could develop their ideas during these 10'30". During the finale, "Visible Wind" reminds me the theatrical vocal "Ange" style. But this is not to annoy me, of course. On the contrary.

This album is a bit of a disappointment. I would have expected another sort of evolution. This is still a good album, but like its predecessor it is absolutely not essential. There are lots of better albums out there.

This album sounds less symphonic, less straight-forward and less melodic. Still, compositions are nice to listen to. Only that some magic has gone, IMHHO (humble and honest opinion).

Three stars.

Visible Wind play energetic punchy music - at their best they are a great symphonic progressive band, in their weaker moments they tend to sound a little too AOR for comfort. The similarity in the lead vocals to John Wetton's delivery ineveitably brings to mind resemblances to Asia, but genreally Visible Wind is a much more prog orientated unit. Instrumentally these guys are great, pleanty of inspired playing and a clean production which hints at the potential they have to produce something really special if they stretch themselves a little more compositionally.

Well worthy investigating.

I keep saying it's an interesting journey exploring all those neo bands you haven't heard yet before. Like this Visible Wind with their second album A Moment beyond Time proving to be another very good neo progressive effort.

And very good is in my book normally with lots of keyboard or guitar breaks and not too dominant vocals. Well, the vocals are certainly present with this Canadian band. Sometimes in French, mostly in English. Good vocals too but not too present or dominant. And the guitar parts by lead vocalist Philippe Woolgar are very nice to say the least and appear in many of the songs on this album. Like in the first substantial track A Moment in Time in the second half of it making me want more of the same.

They keep coming and tempt me to even give the excellence score (4*) to this album. But that would be a bit too much I feel. If I could give the 3,5 it would be the perfect score for this output but alas I can't and I'm forced to make the hard choice once again but will have to round down to three stars due to lack of essential contribution to the subgenre. It's very good though and recommended to fans of melodic neo progressive rock. It's funny by the way that on my version of this album there's a song called Chasing the Skyline and it happens to be the very highlight of the entire release, excellent composition. So try to get this version I would say.

The Canadian band performed numerous live shows after ''Catharsis'',but their good activity was not enough to hold singer Christopher Wells on board.His replacement came within the band's member crew with keyboardist Stephen Geysens taking over the vocal duties.Shortened to a quartet Visible Wind recorded the follow-up of ''Catharsis'', entitled ''A Moment Beyond Time'', released on the US Progressive Records.

The overall style hasn't changed much compared to the debut with the band insisting on playing melodic progressive rock with a bit of AOR thrown in and based more on atmosphere and less on complexity,maybe a couple of tracks are a bit more complex this time.Additionally the compositions have again a strong lyrical content with Geysens prooving to be a great and emotional singer,with also one track being sung in French.A good combination of synths and organ with an accesible approach make the band's influences obvious and these are mainly GENESIS of the 75's-80's era along with some SAGA and RUSH vibes.The guitar work of Philippe Woolgar remains a reference point with plenty of memorable hooks,while there is also some more space for instrumental passages on this sophomore release,which end up to be quite interesting.The album though suffers at moments from the mediocre poppish production of the time and some cheap synth sounds on a few tracks.

While I slightly prefer their debut over ''A Moment Beyond Time'',this new album by Visible Wind still finds the band grounded in progressive rock fields with some great musicianship throughout,despite the light commercial tendencies.Recommended, especially to fans of easy- going progressive rock.