VISIONS

While writing material for the first work of Coalition, their leader and keyboardist Steve Gresswell entered quite often more symphonic territories.At the end he felt that these recordings were not really suitable to the style of Coalition and thus The Inner Road came to life in 2011 in Reading, UK, featuring also Coalition's guitarist Phil Braithwaite.The debut album ''Visions'' was apparently a composing collaboration between Gresswell and Braithwaite and found its way into the market in October 2011, released under the management of Gresswell's Orbital Productions.

The good and the bad appear both in this album, but fortunately the positive elements are more than the negative ones.Gresswell's succesfully marked this project as a Symphonic Prog one, even if the occasional Neo Prog flourishes dominate the album at moments.12 tracks in here and all of them sound tasteful, well-composed and enjoyable with strong symphonic textures in a modern style, led by Gresswell's impressive keyboard twists and the good guitar plays of his collaborator Phil Braithwaite.Shadows of early IQ, STEVE HACKETT, Dutch veterans TRION and FLAMBOROUGH HEAD and even instrumental ARENA are evident throughout an album, which also contains lots of sampled orchestral moves, programmed flutes and maybe some Mellotron echoes as well as a strong sense of melody.Most of this material is bombastic, atmospheric and pompous with Gresswell providing a great instrumental richness with his keyboards, ranging from cinematic soundscapes to full-blown instrumental Progressive Rock, powered by his flashy synthesizers.On the other hand the computer drumming, even if it comes as flawless, sounds quite mechanical, almost robotic, while some of the programmed orchestrations are pretty thin and pale.The majority of these pieces follow the same formula, at the end sounding a bit similar to each other, making their own identity a questionable matter.However the music is played with inspiration, passion and nostalgia, offering eventually interesting, instrumental material along the lines of the Neo and Symphonic Prog genres.

You will hardly find any elements in this album, which will distinguish The Inner Road from the mass of second-wave Symphonic Prog bands.What you will find though is some well-crafted and melodic instrumental music of fine quality.Recommended.