THE BLACK HOLE

Since the release of their first album, the band has lost his vocalist Jocelyn Beaulieu who has a special voice in the range of Jon Anderson of Yes. Since then the sound and the music of the band change for a more in your face kind of rock, heavier, less retro-prog and more modern. I was a bit disappointed with the next two releases, it felt to me that the band has lost his sense for good melodies. It's clear that the voice of Jean François Désilets doesn't have the same strenght of Jocelyn, but his bass sound is still great, very upfront in the mix. However the band has done some interesting work on the vocals with 3 members of the band in some places, especially in the strongest track of the album "So- By Your Side" and in the song "Crash". In the first song we are treated with some long guitar solos and that pedal note that the band has always used in the past. The music reach the Prog Metal genre and the instrumental parts is use in many sections showing the excellent musicianship of each player including some tasty keyboards lines from Sébastien Cloutier. "Fall' Fly" is a fine example of this with some Geddy Lee bass style and some serious heavy guitar parts. The band made a wise choice to close the album by including a new version of the song "Amora Demoris" from the first album. I think that this one is the best album since their debut because I feel that I could grasp on the melody like I did with the first one.