INTRUSION

Hamadryad whom their previous two albums "Conservation of Mass" and "Safe in Conformity" I have reviewed, is a progressive rock group from Montreal released "Intrusion" as their third studio album. The music of the band was originally quite complex combinening many elements of old school prog heads like Genesis and Yes with some falvour of Gentle Giant especially during their choirs. Their second album was much closer to Gabriel era of Genesis. Both were excellent albums as you might want to read the reviews in this site.

This Intrusion album blew me away with its opening track titled as Funk-A-Trunk (8:55) which has great composition overall, combining excellent tagline melody with great harmonies among all instruments used in this track, dynamic energy and great time signatures from start to end. There are many surprises from each of the segment presented. The vocal part is great, the keyboard solo is superb and making the music really an interesting prog music - remembering the glory days of prog. Hope all songs contained here are like this opening track

Unfortunately not all of the tracks like the opening one, as the second track Pray to My God (11:15) is very weak, composition-wise. I don't really believe how come Hamadryad creates this weak one even though they tried with good guitar fills - but it does not help elevate the musical quality. It continues weakening to the next one Lap of Love (6:34) as well as Sentenced (6:12). Another excellent track is Lost (5:11) especially with its excellent combination of vocal and keyboard work. Well ...it's too late for me to arrive to this track which is positioned at 8th track of the album. Hopefully all tracks similar in energy and composition like this one or opening track.

Even though this album has two key tracks but overall the composition is really weak and all songs sound like disjointed one to another - making it not enjoyable overall. The band must wake-up for the next one to create something as good as their previous first two albums. Keep on proggin' ..!

Peace on earth and mercy mild - GW