ECHOES

The progressive band CYAN was formed in England 1984. Their music is a mix between early GENESIS, IQ, IT BITES, Mike OLDFIELD, PENDRAGON and PINK FLOYD. This album contains the remaining tracks from the first two, now deleted CYAN CD's, "For King & Country" and "Pictures From The Other Side", that wasn't released on the 1997 release "Remastered". The tracks have been re-mastered and re-mixed and there are also three rare previously unreleased tracks. Some of the tracks have even been re-recorded to make the release more interesting. The highlights are "Man amongst Men", "Snowbound", "Nightflight" and "Solitary Angel" which is the best track on this album, with its beautiful Mellotron playing.

- CYAN is working on a concept album with the project name "Oceana". Hopefully this will be released in April 2000. CYAN is one of the better bands from England at the moment, and the forthcoming double concept album is destined to be a real killer. Recommended to lovers of early GENESIS.

Some people are comparing this band with other ones from this genre like IQ, Marillion, Pendragon or even Genesis. I think the quality of their music does really not justify this, maybe it can hold a comparison with Collins era Genesis, but even this is doubtful. This album here is supposed to be a good compilation of their stuff and since I can't find anything interesting in this kind of pop-ish prog rock, I don't think that any album from them is worth checking out for a prog fan. I don't want to put down the effort of the musicians playing here and there's no insult at all intended by this, but this is just my personal assessment of the music presented here. Still I'm giving 2 stars for it!

(Edited 10/7/2005)

This very keyboards-oriented neo-progressive album is VERY pleasant and refreshing to listen. The influences vary between Pendragon, early Genesis, Camel and IQ: even the Genesis of the 80's can be sometimes recognized! The miscellaneous arrangements are VERY well made, given the fact that the music is not really complex: however, the music is NEVER dull & minimalist. The modern keyboards are quite varied and VERY melodic: they sometimes flirt with a very melodic, colorful and catchy New Age style; there is often a judicious mix between modern & vintage keyboards. The electric guitars are omnipresent and help very much the keyboards to produce very melodic, catchy & elaborated textures: those guitars often have a bit the Mike Oldfield's sound. The lead vocals, sometimes approaching the tones of Jean-Jacques Goldman and Gary Chandler (Jadis), are not bad at all. The keyboardist & multi-instrumentalist Robert Reed plays most of the music: as a reminder, he plays the keyboards for the progressive band Magenta; even Magenta's Cristina Murphy sings on "Tomorrow's here today". The lead vocals on "I defy the sun" are AMAZINGLY similar to the singer of Pendragon! All the tracks are at least excellent, except "Jimmy the tank", which is "only" very good. Amateurs of colorful & melodic keyboards, you should not be disappointed.

Rating: 4.5 stars

This last Cyan album to-date is actually more a compilation effort than a new studio release. Four songs come out their debut album "For King And Country" while another three were released on "Pictures From The Other Side". They did already this sort of exercise with the album "Remastered" in 1997. Actually, this one is a remastering (and rework) of the remaining songs of these two albums that were not present in their first compilation.

This means that out of two studio albums, Cyan released two compilation ones. This is mainly due to the fact that their previous record label went bankrupt and that Cyan wanted to make their material available again. I guess that I can live with this explanation.

There will be three new songs here : "Cyan", the opening number. It is an intrumental (like many Cyan tracks) which sounds very much like Genesis when they were four. Lots of keyboards and very strong bass (maybe a bit too invasive). An average and apparently a very old song which was never released (this almost always mean something...).

The other two sit at the end of the album. They are songs from the sessions of their previous studio album "The Creeping Vine" which didn't make their entry. "Charm The Snake" is a short song which is fully Gabriel oriented. A nice song which might have some link with"Harold The Barrel". It is the best of the new tracks featured on "Echoes". "Jimmy The Tank" is dispensible.

My favourites songs from this compilation are "Man Amongst Men" which features beautiful harmonies & crying guitar. It is totally "Pendragon" oriented with vocals a la Nick Barrett (like in "I Defy The Sun"). Maybe a tribute to a man (Nick) without whom Cyan would maybe never have recorded an album (you can read the full story in my review for their debut effort).

The other great song is "Solitary Angel". For once, vocals are the highlight here. Completely reminiscent of David Surkamp ("Pavlov's Dog"). I guess that either you love or hate these vocals. I belong to the former category.

This album is good but of course not essential for a penny (or ? cent if you prefer).

Echoes of the past

After the release of three studio albums, Cyan gave us this compilation album consisting of remastered tracks from the first two albums plus three previously unreleased tracks. In fact, the present album was the second Cyan compilation album, the first one - simply called Remastered - being released in 1997 and consisted solely of remastered tracks from the two first albums. Echoes brings together the remaining tracks from those two albums that didn't make it onto Remastered. For anyone who already owns the original studio albums, Echoes thus offers very little new.

Released straight after The Creeping Vine, Echoes features a cover art based on the one for that album with the green "bubbles" here being filled with images of earlier cover art. The three previously unreleased songs are the opener named after the band as well as the two last tracks, Charm The Snake and Jimmy The Tank. The first of these three has something of a Camel-vibe and is wholly pleasant even if hardly very impressive. The last two are from the The Creeping Vine sessions and sticks out from the rest. They are worth a listen, but not up to par with the material that made it onto that very good album. Charm The Snake is a good song that reminds of Gabriel-era Genesis with some very appealing touches of flute. Jimmy The Tank is a jazzier affair with a rather predictable chorus.

By its very nature, Echoes is a release for fans only as it offers very little new to those who already knows the band's output. For those who don't, it is strongly recommended to begin with the band's regular studio albums, preferably in backward chronological order. If you would still want more after that, then you should go for the present release.

After the release of this compilation album, Reed would go on to form Magenta (also named after a colour) and following the widespread popularity of that project, Cyan faded away making Echoes their final release to date. Might Cyan perhaps be resurrected one day? One can only speculate.