LEGACY

Fifth album from this excellent Flemish quartet, they managed to better their already superb Eclectic Measure released two years earlier. Coming with an outstanding and very remarkable (as in... you can't possibly miss with its sparkling red-orange colours) psych/prog artwork that fits quite well the sonic content of the album, Legacy is an exciting almost classic prog, but given its decade of birth, we shall call it retro-prog, without it being derogatory in any sense, way, shape or form. Strangely enough, despite loads of guitar heroics, it's not mentioned that Brother Steve plays it (or anyone else for that matter) and the other Steve (Marks is now not only playing wind instruments, but seems tio take care of most of the keyboard parts

Sooooo H69 offers a pretty enthusiasting brand of retro/classic prog rock, with all of the very flattering sounds of that magic decade, including some vintage trons, Moog, Rhodes, sax, flutes and also (and unfortunately-still) those trafficked vocals through some filters and effects, which in the long run become slightly irritating. The band's sound is still quite influenced by Crimson and Anekdoten, but this time much more by Fripp's cohorts (more the Court to Islands era) than on the previous album, but not being too derivative. It would be easy to point out the opening and closing suites as the highlights of the album (and they are), but there is more to it than that. All of the tracks are of a good level, if not Jerusalem being a tad weaker.

Opening on 18-mins+rapid fire heavy motif, the 3-movement Requiem suite is a now-typical H69 track, with plenty of breaks and tempo changes, excellent interplay between all. Indeed the almost 18-mins closing ambitious (look at the movements' titles) "Great Work" suite is almost perfect in its progression from a quiet slow start, gradually moving and strengthening (via some wild guitar soli) into a solid rocker with some very entertaining moments and ending up into a grandiose finale, but not before having induce down your spine a few chills and tingles, before heading out ever so quietly.

Well from the more accessible prog from Belgium (this means not counting Aranis or Univers Zero), it appears that the match is quite close between Madelgaire's (Im)Patience and Hypnos' Legacy, but I think the latter edges out the competition, mostly because it's flawless.