BENEATH THE VEIL OF WINTER'S FACE

Here is a stereotype of melodic prog a-la modern Yes or Saga in their less simple music structures (actually a few ones), that I should have really liked to find inside the recent albums by Asia, but nevermind...here you find an intelligent tune like "The Sailor and The Mermaid", but also the well structured "The Awakening", where the good songwriting and in particular the arrangement by Michel St-Père, true mastermind of the band, is quite remarkable...think of his perfomance, when He's able to alternate the delicate passages at the acoustic guitar with more "bombastic" moments; but We cannot forget also the acrobatic vocalism by Benoit, unfortunately too much close to his personal "limit", being anyway brave (above all in the song "Travel to the Night"), even tough not always inspiring. In fact sometimes it seems He tries to emulate Steve Perry by Journey (this latter singer actually was much more versatile and always conscious of his role) and Dennis De Young by Styx, but it's a minor defect after all. Anyway, apart from my consideration above, perhaps this good Canadian Quartet has been able to take the best light moments from Camel (otherwise Pendragon did the same thing) and Rush in their less intricate pieces of rock music, without reaching the same artistic peek; but probably that's my idea...fortunately their music is not simple AOR and I recommend the present work to the fans of the intelligent pop-progressive music, even though enriched by means of a few "mainstream moments". As a matter of fact, here you can get an inkling of their maturity and a new artistic direction as well...like for instance within track#5, entitled "The Scarlet Eye", where the keyboard player begins to emerge or inside the title track, where you can find their first personal music imprinting (not completely present in the track "Snow White", a bit "Floydian", but it's a question of critical points of view naturally...). At the end I could add an half star maximum, as for their new direction They try to settle, but also for their intense work; and naturally I like to recall the courageous act of Benoit, as He chose to sing in the 2009 line-up by Yes and this event makes the present album even more interesting!!...Otherwise you could listen to them while you're driving your car and it seems perfect for your quite moments and relax!!