THREE DISTANCES... IRREGULAR SIGNS

All instrumental progressive rock from France led by guitarist Chris Casagrande. This is their astounding debut album and it contains outstanding musicianship and compositions. Their music is a mix between GENESIS, ALLAN HOLDSWORTH, KING CRIMSON, MARILLION, UK, XANG, YES and ÄNGLAGARD. The guitar playing is in the forefront of the music that contains highly technical musical passages that leads from one track to the other. There are a lot of changing rhythms and odd-time signatures. Probably one of the most interesting bands from France today. Highly recommended!

This is very Jazz-rock and do not hear much inspiration from Genesis, KC and Marillion as someother reviewers are hinting.

This debut contains much promises for future releases, with excellent musicianship, but clearly their biggest room for improvement is in the inspiration dept.

Priam was a king of Troy at the time of Trojan Wars In Greek mythology. He, or his family wasn't very lucky for his father and all brothers got killed in the first war of Troy. At the time of second Trojan war when Priam was the king after his father Laomedon, he wasn't succesful in defending the city, as we all know, and Troy was destroyed and his son Hector got killed by Achilles. For the counterweight he had 20 wives! ...If it can be considered as a counterweight for bad success, otherwise his heaven was was a truly deep hell.

How or why this name Priam is connected to the band, I don't know. Maybe they were as unsuccesful as their archetype was for they did release their second and last album at 2001 and their website seems to be closed as well.

I'm not an expert when it comes to fusion or jazz prog, but I've heard a some of them including a couple of albums that has rated very high. What I find as a main problem in fusion has been the virtuoso feeling they're up to. Too many albums I've heard where the guitarist is the center of the universe and the rest of the band is there just to support the king. Priam makes no difference in the overall situation - it's all guitar driven fusion rock, but the feeling it delivers does make the difference. The music flows with guitar, not for guitar and the music is great that sticks more to arrangements and songs than to instruments and playing. The guitar doesn't cover all but gives room to others too and there's nice and calm keyboard-orchestral moments in between. The guitar plays usually with high and echoing long emotional notes with sudden wasp-fast moments in between.

Songs fit together well making it a great whole being a pleasantly flowing enjoyment all the way through. Songs are individuals anyhow, for example there's a far-eastern, even arabic sounding acoustic song Signs Beyond The Euphrates that stands out like all of the songs here. They're nicely composed including slow and fast parts and all complex rhythms and changes still strictly following the not-showing-off-rule of the band - it all flows naturally. Vocals doesn't exist, but that's the guideline in fusion, I think. This is probably the best fusion album I've heard so far and it makes me want to extend my fusion knowledge. I myself enjoy this album very much and I cannot but recommend warmly it to you all too!

Absolutely fantastic fusion act from France,who released two great albums before disbanding.Formed out of the late-80's group ''Arlequin'',PRIAM consisted of four talented and creative musicians with a wide range of influences,from straight jazz and classic progressive rock to electronic music and even techno.Keeping the rock element as their basis PRIAM released their first album ''Three distances...irregular signs'' in 1998.

This came as a total surprise to me,as I didn't expect to hear such a fantastic work by a totally unknown band.Their sound is the most balanced version of jazz/fusion,symphonic rock and space/electronic music you can find around.There are a lot of rhythmic parts,were bass and drums are leading the way,accompanied by virtuosic guitar soloing,then suddenly the storm is followed by the beautiful rainbow of the superb electronic soundscapes,delivering a great spacey atmosphere.Very often the music takes off,led by up-tempo grooves with nice interplays and majestic breaks,but you can also easily recognize the neo/symph influence on Chris Casagrande's solos.Recognizable is also the influence that ROBERT FRIPP had on Casagrande's style of playing with all these weird and complicated breaks and take-offs.At the end I'm sure you'll find yourself absolutely mind-blown by PRIAM's energy,creativity,balance and inspiration.''Three distances...irregular signs'' is easily one of the best modern fusion albums I've ever heard and should easily appeal to all prog rock fans without any exception!