ABOVE THE STORM

Oh, some albums are really hard to rate! I´ve been listening to Above The Storm for quite some time and still it does not click me. In theory it has just about everything I like in prog music: the instrumental is strong and creative, the musicians are excellent and the arrangements and performances are tasteful. The only part I really didn´t like was the vocal department. Not that Daniel Guathier is a bad singer, no! It´s just the case his vocal style is not my cup of tea. I think he should get a real good singer and then things would improve a lot.

Well, at least that´s what I can pont my finger at. The rest is just alright, I really liked Guathiers instrumental side. He plays great bass, good acoustic guitar and real fine synphonic keyboards. Gaston Gagnon is a terrific guitarrist and his solos are one of the CD´s highlights. The music is an interesting mixture of prog folk, symphonic rock plus some blues and jazz bits here and there. I don´t know why he is labeled as neo prog, but then it is hard to define his music anyway. It´s quite varied and I can say there is no bad moments. Nothing really excited me, but still the music is good. It just does not fit my current taste, I guess. So 3 stars will do it for me.